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Narrating the war: Analyzing Russia’s narratives for its invasion of Ukraine

Casey Michel — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 14:00:00 +0000

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 challenged much of the common Western understanding of Russia. How can the world better understand Russia? What are the steps forward for Western policy? The Eurasia Center’s new “Russia Tomorrow” series seeks to reevaluate conceptions of Russia today and better prepare for its future tomorrow.

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Introduction
Russia’s relationship with Ukraine
Russia’s global standing
About the author

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been, by any metric, a strategic nightmare for Moscow. Not only has Russia lost more soldiers in Ukraine than in any war since World War II—and might well end up losing more troops than the United States lost during the entirety of WWII—but the Russian economy has lurched between overheating and stagflation. All the while, the Kremlin’s decision to expand its invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a NATO both enlarged and enhanced; in Russia’s transition from regional hegemon to a “junior partner” (and even potential vassal) of China; in waning influence in places such as the South Caucasus, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe; and the creation of a heavily armed, deeply resentful neighbor in Ukraine, which will see Kyiv nurse both an animus toward Russia and a desire to reclaim much of the occupied territories for years to come.

The entire war has been an exercise in Russian myopia, accelerating Russian decline and leading to a broad range of self-inflicted wounds. Mirroring other neo-colonial wars—France in Algeria, the Netherlands in Indonesia, Portugal in southern Africa—the war has exposed Russia as a pretender to great-power status and a shell of a once-swaggering empire. While Moscow might yet gain more towns scattered throughout Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, any remaining victories will remain pyrrhic, with Russia continuing to sacrifice its future prospects for any present gains.

Much of Russia’s failure rests on Ukrainians’ ongoing sacrifices, as well as on the broader West’s willingness to back Ukraine’s troops. But a great deal of this disaster also stems from a series of muddled narratives that Russia has peddled about precisely why it launched the expanded invasion in the first place. Pushing a sprawling, occasionally contradictory series of goals and rationales, and without a clear narrative push to consolidate either support or success, Moscow has flailed for years, lurching from one rationale to another—all while its troops continue dying en masse and its domestic population continues to feel escalating pain and stress as the war drags on.

Given all of the competing claims Moscow has put forth to defend its invasion of Ukraine, it is worth analyzing how the Kremlin has justified its expanded war and how Moscow has tried to sell the deadliest war Europe has seen since the days of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Such analysis can not only help Western allies of Ukraine figure out how best to back Kyiv’s efforts but can provide a roadmap for sounder Russia policy in the West overall. In sifting and sorting these narratives, we can identify precisely what is motivating the Kremlin—and, better yet, how to stop it.

Selling the war

The Kremlin’s public rationales for its war in Ukraine fall into two broad buckets.

The first rests directly on Russia’s relationship with Ukraine, focusing specifically on the links, both historic and contemporary, between Moscow and Kyiv. The narratives focused specifically on Ukraine, and on Russians’ relationships with Ukrainians, can be broken down further into three primary prongs.

The Ukraine war is primarily about “rescuing” Russians and Russian speakers, especially (but not exclusively) in eastern and southern Ukraine. This is primarily predicated on the idea that Ukraine is overseen by “fascists” and “Nazis,” who have been in power since the 2014 Euromaidan “coup.”
Russia and Ukraine are actually “brotherly” nations, and Ukrainians are simply “confused” about their relationship as subalterns to Russia. This is primarily predicated on the idea that Ukraine is simply “Little Russia,” part of the “triune state” of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine—and, naturally, not part of the West. The war is simply about restoring that Ukrainian status. It is also about restoring Russia’s colonial control of Ukraine and keeping Ukraine as an entity subservient to Russia.
“Ukraine” does not actually exist but is a Leninist fabrication. This is predicated on the idea that Vladimir Lenin and other Soviet leadership were mistaken to draw any internal, republican borders within the Soviet Union—and that the entire “near abroad” is rightfully Russian. The war is about rectifying this Leninist mistake.

However, the Kremlin’s rhetoric explaining its war in Ukraine has often expanded far beyond Ukraine itself. Indeed, while the fighting might take place largely on Ukrainian (and occasionally Russian) territory, the Kremlin has often claimed that the war is both global and epochal, linked directly to the second broad bucket of narratives and focused on the status of Russia’s global standing. Those narratives centering on Russia’s role in the broader international context, as well as the creation of a new geopolitical order, can also be broken down into three primary threads.

This war is primarily about beating back NATO and Western expansion. NATO “pledged” in 1990 that it would not expand its borders, and this war is simply about forcing NATO to uphold that pledge. This war is a “defensive” war, aimed at preventing Russian “encirclement.”
This war is about the non-Western world standing up to Western bullying, hypocrisy, and decadence. Russia is at the vanguard of the non-Western world’s fight against Western “colonialism,” trying to restore “traditional values” that the West is attempting to destroy around the world.
This war is about restoring Russia’s status as a “great power,” both in Europe and globally. It is primarily about ushering in a “multipolar” world, with other “civilization-states” such as China and India rising to parity with the United States.

None of the narratives above are mutually exclusive. Indeed, one of the difficulties in assessing these narrative components is the multiple instances of reinforcing themes and topics. For example, the idea that Russia and Ukraine are brotherly nations—or even the notion that Ukraine does not exist—can be directly tethered to the idea that NATO must never extend to Ukraine and that the war is necessarily defensive. The false claim that Ukraine’s 2014 revolution was in reality a coup is also often paired with the idea that the war is about rolling back Western influence and meddling in non-Western nations. These narratives can often work in conjunction—and are often included in the same speeches and writings from Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies.

Adding to the difficulty, many of these narratives are also in tension with one another. For example, Putin wrote at length about the supposed brotherly relationship between Ukraine and Russia, yet he has simultaneously claimed that Ukraine is a mere fabrication set to be annulled. Likewise, the idea that this is somehow an anti-colonial war grates against the claim that some countries are civilization-states destined to rule over smaller nations.

Still, each of these narratives is worth analyzing on its own. The remainder of this paper will be dedicated to just that: detailing the primary contours of each of these narratives, as well as offering analysis (and often corrections) therein. The paper will also offer a brief conclusion about what these competing and contradictory narratives reveal about Russia’s aims—and how best to combat Russian expansionism in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Russia’s relationship with Ukraine

The Ukraine war is primarily about “rescuing” Russians and Russian speakers, especially (but not exclusively) in eastern and southern Ukraine. This is primarily predicated on the idea that Ukraine is overseen by “fascists” and “Nazis,” who have been in power since the 2014 Euromaidan “coup.”

Details

One of the primary narratives that Russia has relied on since its expanded invasion did not originate in February 2022, or even in the months beforehand. It instead traces back to at least early 2014, when Ukrainian protesters successfully ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych in the democratic Euromaidan Revolution—and when Putin launched Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in Crimea and parts of the Donbas.

At its simplest, Russia’s post-Euromaidan narrative boiled down to the idea that the Ukrainian protesters were illegitimate usurpers, ousting a democratically elected leader and instituting a new regime dedicated not only to wresting Ukraine out of Moscow’s orbit but focused especially on the immiseration of Russians and Russian speakers. The “junta” responsible for this “coup” was secretly in hock to its “real masters in the West,” who were simply using Ukraine and its post-2014 government as a means of targeting Russia and Russian interests. In this view, these new Ukrainian leaders—including Volodymyr Zelenskyy—should be considered fascists and Nazis, simply because they were opposed to Russia writ large, whether that meant not recognizing Russia’s claims to Crimea or encouraging the use of the Ukrainian language throughout the country.

According to Russia, this supposed junta continued its persecution for years until things reached a breaking point in early 2022. That February, Moscow was supposedly forced to invade Ukraine for the express protection of Russians in regions like eastern Ukraine. As Putin claimed, Russia did not need to annex any further parts of Ukraine, but authorities in Kyiv needed to recognize the nominal independence of both the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic—building upon previous demands that these entities must also have a veto over Kyiv’s foreign policy decisions. According to Moscow, Ukraine also needed to renounce any fascist or Nazi leaders and sympathies forevermore.

As Putin said during his address announcing the expanded invasion, “The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime.” As he added in 2025, the crisis did not begin with Russia’s invasion but was the “result of the coup d’etat in Ukraine, which was supported and provoked by the West.” More specifically, Putin said in 2022 that Russia’s expanded invasion was a direct response to the “tragedy” in the Donbas. As Tass reported, Putin told a twelve-year-old girl that Ukraine’s “bombardments, artillery strikes and combat operations” in Donetsk and Luhansk “compelled Russia to start this military operation.”

Putin’s rhetoric also built on this narrative to call for the notion of “denazifying” Ukraine. As he memorably claimed during his February 2022 address, Russia would “seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.” The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian ambassador to the United Nations echoed this language.

Analysis

The idea that Russia needed to invade Ukraine in order to rescue compatriots and remove Nazi elements from Ukraine’s leadership is, to outside observers, perhaps the most farcical of the narratives detailed here. The notion that Ukraine—whose president is Jewish—requires denazification was immediately met with ridicule and mockery. However, this argument also provided a sense of flexibility for Putin. After all, it remains unclear what denazification would actually entail—whether regime change, full lustration, the ending of any pro-Western trajectory policies, a mix of these options, or something else entirely. Likewise, the call has a clear domestic component, with Putin able to sell the war as a battle against a new generation of supposed fascists and a reprise of Moscow’s victory in World War II.

The calls that Moscow must rescue ethnic Russians suffering in Ukraine, especially in the Donbas, also have significant salience for domestic audiences in Russia. For many Russians, the Donbas remains a traditionally Russian land and Moscow maintains a unique role in protecting Russians in neighboring nations—including beyond Ukraine. Given its salience, this line of argument would likely be employed again should Russia launch another invasion of a neighboring nation in the future, with potential usage from Estonia to Kazakhstan.

Russia and Ukraine are actually “brotherly” nations, and Ukrainians are simply “confused” about their relationship as subalterns to Russia. This is primarily predicated on the idea that Ukraine is simply “Little Russia,” part of the “triune state” of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine—and, naturally, not part of the West. The war is simply about restoring that Ukrainian status. It is also about restoring Russia’s colonial control of Ukraine and keeping Ukraine as an entity subservient to Russia.

Details

As with the narrative on Ukraine suffering a coup via fascists in 2014, the idea that Russia and Ukraine are brotherly nations—and that they are destined for embrace, with Russia lording as the “elder brother” over Little Russia—long predated Russia’s 2022 expanded invasion. Indeed, such a narrative stretches back to at least the middle of the nineteenth century, when young Russian aristocrats “discovered” Ukraine and began “to work intensely to uncover the region’s supposed original Russianness,” wrote Johns Hopkins University’s Eugene Finkel, whose 2024 book traced the origins of such efforts. No longer was Ukraine a separate polity with a distinct history; by the 1830s and 1840s, as Russian Slavophile writer Aleksei Khomiakov noted, Ukraine was “an organic and inseparable part of a single Russian nation.” Russia and Ukraine, alongside Belarus, formed a supposed triune state, in which all three nations were part of one greater Slavic nation headed by Russia.

It is an idea that, nearly two centuries later, remains largely unchanged—and which helped provide the outline for one of Moscow’s prime narratives about why it needed to launch its expanded invasion in 2022. This narrative formed much of the basis for Putin’s lengthy 2021 treatise on the topic, in which he detailed the supposed “historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” As Putin wrote:

I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. Our spiritual, human and civilizational ties formed for centuries and have their origins in the same sources, they have been hardened by common trials, achievements and victories. Our kinship has been transmitted from generation to generation. It is in the hearts and the memory of people living in modern Russia and Ukraine, in the blood ties that unite millions of our families. Together we have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For we are one people.

If anything, Putin’s beliefs in the historical unity binding Russia and Ukraine have only grown despite the military setbacks and massive casualty rates continuing to climb. In late 2022, Putin announced the supposed “annexation” of further Ukrainian territory, including territory Moscow had not yet even conquered. As a means of getting around this awkward fact, Putin pointed to the supposed unity already extant between Ukraine and Russia—found, naturally, in the land he was now claiming as Russia’s. As Putin said, those in Ukraine were “our compatriots, our brothers and sisters . . . the native part of our united people.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a pro-war concert at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia. February 22, 2023. (Sputnik/Maksim Blinov/Kremlin via REUTERS)

Nor is it just Putin who has peddled such tropes. In a malicious, revelatory article originally posted on (and later removed from) RIA Novosti, one Russian writer laid out what Russian victory in Ukraine would look like. “Ukraine has returned to Russia,” the article begins. “It will be reorganized, re-established and returned to its natural state as part of the Russian world . . . [Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine] will now act in geopolitical terms as a single whole.” Thanks to the invasion, “Russia is restoring its unity” via a “de facto civil war” waged by “brothers.” And thanks to Moscow’s victory, “Russia is restoring its historical completeness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together—in all its totality of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians [i.e., Ukrainians].”

Analysis

In this narrative, Ukraine and Ukrainians still exist in concept, but only as a nation and people subordinated to Russia and Russian sovereignty. It is, if anything, a vision that posits Ukraine as simply another Belarus: a state that retains nominal independence but is nonetheless tightly embraced by Moscow and subservient to the Kremlin’s demands. This, as Moscow sees it, is the natural state of things—and anything else would simply be a historical anomaly.

This narrative, of course, is chock-full of historic revisionism, outright fabrications, and warmed-over excuses for empire. As Finkel noted, Kyiv’s origins predate Moscow’s founding by centuries, and few if any Russian intellectuals ever considered Ukraine part of their history and identity until the middle of the nineteenth century. Moreover, this narrative grossly ignores what Ukrainians actually think—and blinded Moscow to just how fiercely Ukrainians would fight to preserve both their state and their nation moving forward.

“Ukraine” does not actually exist but is a Leninist fabrication. This is predicated on the idea that Vladimir Lenin and other Soviet leadership were mistaken to draw any internal, republican borders within the Soviet Union—and that the entire “near abroad” is rightfully Russian. The war is about rectifying this Leninist mistake.

Details

This narrative flips the notion of a supposed triune state on its head. Instead of Ukraine being a constituent part of a greater Russia, there is no Ukraine whatsoever—and any claims of a separate Ukrainian nation, language, or identity are simply slander against the one, true, and indivisible Russia. It is a narrative that tips into the genocidal, giving Russia cover to try eliminating Ukrainian identity entirely.

As with other narratives mentioned above, the idea that Ukraine is not a separate polity but is simply a “project” meant to target and undercut Russia has a lengthy lineage. In the 1860s, Russian officials shunted the idea of Ukraine entirely to the side, claiming that the Ukrainian language “never existed, does not exist and cannot exist,” culminating in a tsarist edict banning the teaching of Ukrainian and marking the first instance of Russian authorities trying to stamp out the idea of Ukraine entirely.

The key inflection point in this narrative—that Ukraine is a mere fabrication, rather than a fraternal nation that has lost its way—came in the early 1920s, when Lenin and other Soviet higher-ups began outlining the borders of the new Soviet republics. Given the levels of support in Ukraine for Ukrainian nationhood, Soviet leadership granted Ukraine (and a number of other polities) republican status, effectively placing it on par with the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. For Putin and others, this decision was a “time bomb” that ultimately detonated in the Soviet Union’s dissolution and is a historic wrong that must be corrected.

We see elements of this narrative throughout Putin’s speeches and writings. In the same essay mentioned above about the supposed historical unity of Russia and Ukraine, Putin claims that “modern Ukraine is entirely the product of the Soviet era,” created “on the lands of historical Russia.” As he added when announcing the expanded invasion, “modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution, and Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia—by separating, severing what is historically Russian land . . . When it comes to the historical destiny of Russia and its peoples, Lenin’s principles of state development were not just a mistake; they were worse than a mistake.”

As such, the time had come to rectify that “mistake”—even to the point of destroying and subsuming Ukraine entirely.

Analysis

Putin might play-act as a historian, but his reading of history is saturated in grievance and mythmaking, cherry-picking facts and concocting details of his own. The idea that Ukraine is a fabrication or some facile project is, of course, belied by the fact that Ukraine and Ukrainians continue to exist and continue to fight back against Russian forces.

Moreover, Putin’s shoddy history is easily dismissed by those who have actually studied the region. As acclaimed historian Serhii Plokhy noted, the idea that Ukraine exists on historical Russian lands is nonsensical. “Even a cursory acquaintance with the history of the Russian Revolution and fall of the Russian Empire that accompanied it indicates that the modern Ukrainian state came into existence not thanks to Lenin but against his wishes and in direct reaction to the Bolshevik putsch in Petrograd in October . . . of 1917,” Plokhy wrote. “The Bolsheviks tried to take control of Kyiv as well but were defeated, jumpstarting the process of the modern Ukrainian state-building.”

Putin is hardly the only Russian nationalist who has learned the hard way the peril of dismissing Ukrainian identity. During the Russian Civil War, the pro-tsarist White forces refused to grant Ukraine (among other nations) any political freedoms or sovereignty. They instead claimed they were fighting for “Russia, one and indivisible”—a cry that rallied few non-Russians and eventually doomed the White forces to defeat.

Russia’s global standing

This war is primarily about beating back NATO and Western expansion. NATO “pledged” in 1990 that it would not expand its borders, and this war is simply about forcing NATO to uphold that pledge. This war is a “defensive” war, aimed at preventing Russian “encirclement.”

Details

Not all of the Russian narratives backing the expanded invasion center on Ukraine. In fact, a number claim that Ukraine is simply the latest flashpoint in a far broader struggle Russia is waging against a perfidious West, and the United States in particular. A case in point is the claim that the war in Ukraine is not just about toppling Kyiv’s “regime,” or even preventing Ukraine from joining NATO, but that it is about unwinding NATO’s post-1991 gains and preventing the wholesale encirclement of Russia by Western forces.

Such a narrative came to the fore in the weeks leading up to the expanded invasion in early 2022. In December 2021, the Kremlin moved from demanding that Ukraine simply acquiesce to Russian demands (especially foregoing NATO membership) to demanding that NATO deployments leave much of Eastern and Central Europe entirely. Moscow specifically called for the removal of NATO forces and weapons from countries such as Romania and Bulgaria, and formally called for NATO to pull back to its 1997 borders, effectively abandoning Poland, Czechia, the Baltics, and others—and effectively restoring military parity between the United States and Russia in Europe.

The Kremlin has justified these demands by claiming that the United States pledged in the early 1990s not to expand NATO eastward. Putin has regurgitated these claims multiple times, including after Russia first launched its invasion in 2014, when the Russian leader stated that Western leaders “have lied to us many times . . . This happened with NATO’s expansion to the east, as well as the deployment of military infrastructure at our borders.” According to Putin, all NATO enlargement following the Soviet dissolution is invalid and must be rolled back. Preventing Ukraine from NATO membership is simply the first domino in a far broader effort to push NATO out of all of its newest member states.

Analysis

Putin’s claims that the United States pledged not to expand NATO are ahistorical and fabricated. The United States never pledged any such veto. Even Mikhail Gorbachev, then ruling as Soviet premier, attested to this, saying that the “topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not . . . brought up in those years.” Moreover, the key comment in question, in which Secretary of State James Baker floated the idea of NATO moving “not one inch east,” referred solely to NATO troops from West Germany moving into East Germany. The George H. W. Bush administration, however, never adopted this or any prohibition on NATO expansion as formal policy.

However, such a lie is a handy means of cultivating support among gullible audiences, both domestically and internationally, and helps present Russian aggression as being defensive in nature. Of course, this kind of framing—that invading a neighbor is not imperialism but is actually a defensive move—long predates Putin. It can be found in everything from the US decision to invade Mexico in the 1840s to Japan’s decision to invade much of Asia in the 1940s. This “defensiveness” was also the basis for much of the Soviet Union’s rationale for invading numerous neighbors, from Hungary in 1956 to Czechoslovakia in 1968 and beyond. Putin will almost certainly not be the last imperial leader to claim his country’s expansion is defensive in nature.

Thankfully, the Kremlin’s demands have been roundly dismissed by NATO and Western governments alike, and Ukraine remains dedicated to joining NATO. Yet the demands highlight how Russia has spun the war in Ukraine as a means not simply of thwarting NATO’s enlargement but of restoring a military parity between the United States and Russia on the European continent. It implies, in other words, an effective return to the Cold War military status quo within Europe and an unwinding of all the post-Cold War gains that have helped beat back malign Russian influence and military dominance in Europe, far beyond just Ukraine.

This war is about the non-Western world standing up to Western bullying, hypocrisy, and decadence. Russia is at the vanguard of the non-Western world’s fight against Western “colonialism,” trying to restore “traditional values” that the West is attempting to destroy around the world.

Details

While the war is taking place in Ukraine, this narrative posits that the war is about far more than simple NATO expansion or Ukrainian nationhood. Instead, it is about finally standing up to Western predation and perfidy, and to the West’s attempts to spread supposedly liberal values around the world—including all those elements opposing so-called traditional values.

Russia’s efforts to transform itself into a bastion of these supposed traditional values dates back at least a decade, when the Kremlin first began positioning itself as the primary bulwark for those opposed to liberal democracy. These include those opposed to LGBTQ rights, those opposed to so-called “gender ideology,” and even those opposed to democracy writ large. This effort has been largely successful, with Russia and Putin widely viewed as the lodestar for these anti-democratic forces.

The war in Ukraine, then, is simply a continuation on this theme. Announcing the expanded invasion in 2022, Putin claimed that the West “sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within.” Patriarch Kirill, one of the key spokesmen for Putin’s regime and the titular head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Moscow Patriarchate, echoed Putin’s claims that the war was predicated on those in eastern Ukraine “refus[ing] to accept the so-called values that are being offered by” the West, including “the gay parade.” RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, one of the war’s biggest boosters, warned that Ukraine risked becoming “an LGBTQ capital or a venue for the Transgender Olympics.”

More broadly, the Kremlin has attempted to position the war as an effort to stand up to Western “neo-colonialism.” Ignoring centuries of Russian colonialism in Ukraine (and elsewhere), Putin has attempted to sell the war as a means of beating back Western colonial efforts. As he said when announcing the supposed annexations of multiple Ukrainian provinces in late 2022, “The West is ready to step over everything in order to preserve the neo-colonial system that allows it to parasitize, in fact, to plunder . . . Hence their aggression towards independent states, towards traditional values and original cultures[.]”

Analysis

It’s difficult to take seriously Russia’s claims that it is waging a war in Ukraine for traditional values, or that it has some kind of spiritual mission to beat back the encroachment of LGBTQ rights. After all, Russia is a country in which the rate of regular church attendance is in the single digits, while the country’s abortion rate remains higher than that of many other European nations. Moreover, the country routinely persecutes Christian denominations, even in Russia itself. The country is hardly a bastion of traditional values, despite Putin’s claims otherwise.

However, the claim that Russia is supposedly leading an anti-colonial war is perhaps the most farcical. Russia was a constituent part of the broader, ghastly story of European colonization, stealing lands and brutalizing populations from Eastern Europe and the Caucasus to North Asia and Central Asia—and even joining Great Britain, France, and Spain in colonizing North America. Claiming it was spreading “civilization” and “Christianity” to “heathen” groups of “savages,” Russia’s colonialist claims were indistinguishable from those in European empires elsewhere. In other words, Moscow was as much a European colonizer as London, Lisbon, Brussels, or Paris.

This was true not just in Chechnya, Kazakhstan, Sakha, or Finland, but also in Ukraine, where Moscow—during tsarist, Soviet, and now Putin eras—routinely engaged in colonial behavior, from ethnic cleansing to cultural genocide to mass murder, all while claiming non-Russian lands as its own. The war in Ukraine is indeed colonial, but with Russia once more in the role of colonizer.

This war is about restoring Russia’s status as a “great power,” both in Europe and globally. It is primarily about ushering in a “multipolar” world, with other “civilization-states” such as China and India rising to parity with the United States.

Details

Arguably the broadest narrative propounded by Russian authorities is that the war in Ukraine is not about the status of certain Ukrainian provinces, or Ukrainian security arrangements, or even the size and status of NATO in Europe. It is instead about restoring Russia’s role as a supposed great power on par with a small number of other states that make up an exclusive club of nations dominating geopolitics. These nations include the United States, China, and potentially India, with Russia also seen as a natural member.

The Kremlin claims Russia’s rightful status as a great power has been dismissed by the West—and especially by the United States, which has preferred to oversee a unipolar world—but no more. In invading Ukraine, Russia has announced its permanent status as one of the supposed civilization-states in a new multipolar world. This is not to say that Russia is aspiring to global dominance, per se. Rather, Russia is aspiring to—and has already achieved—a role as one of the key geopolitical players internationally, regionally dominant and globally relevant. Ukraine remains firmly within Russia’s supposed sphere of influence and, as such, Russia should have the right to do whatever it wants within Ukraine with no outside interference.

This obsession with great-power status has long pervaded Putin’s rhetoric, infusing and inflaming Russia’s revanchism. In October 2022, when he announced Russia’s supposed annexation of four Ukrainian provinces, Putin claimed that Russia is “a great millennial power” and a “country-civilization” that will follow its own path. In March 2023, Putin signed a strategic blueprint outlining Russia’s “historically unique mission” as a “unique state-civilization.” As Uppsala University’s Igor Torbakov wrote, it was the first time that Russian leadership had “officially stated that Russia is a sui generis civilization.”

Much of this narrative has manifested in specific calls for a “new Yalta,” in which leaders in Moscow, Beijing, and Washington effectively carve up the world, Ukraine included. In such a scenario, Russia would be the modern equivalent of the United Kingdom: an empire that might not be quite as powerful or wealthy as the other two nations, but that nonetheless deserves a place at such a summit. “Putin has never hidden that his dream is a new Yalta . . . [to] establish a new world order,” writes journalist Mikhail Zygar. Russia’s Ukraine war—and its supposedly imminent victory—is merely the opening salvo in a far broader global reordering. As the much-maligned RIA Novosti article mentioned above claimed, the invasion of Ukraine meant that a “new world is being born before our eyes”—a world that Russia will help steer.

Analysis

This pretension to greatness hardly began with Putin. Years before Russia’s expanded invasion, the Kremlin and Russian intellectuals were long obsessed with “the pursuit of derzhavnost,” which scholar Seva Gunitsky translates as “both being a great power and being recognized as such by others.” Not only does this mean acting as a regional hegemon, but it also means being entitled to “an unquestioned sphere of influence.” This rhetoric—of Moscow’s “special mission” and its “historic destiny” as a “great power”—stretches back centuries and was evident in the Kremlin’s tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet history.

It is perhaps ironic, then, that little has done more to expose the hollowness of Putin’s claims than his invasion of Ukraine. Rather than restore Russia’s great-power status, the war has led not just to the degradation of the Russian economy and outright military disaster in Ukraine but to Russia’s weakening influence in the South Caucasus, the Middle East, Africa, and, of course, Europe more broadly. It has likewise forced Russia to rely on North Korea to shore up national security, and to lean on China to shore up Russia’s teetering economy.

The war has only accelerated Russian decline and undone, perhaps for good, the potential restoration of Russian greatness. Moscow might still maintain its status on things like the United Nations’ Security Council and might still be the only post-Soviet state with nuclear weapons. But the idea that Russia is, or will soon become, a great power is increasingly laughable—and a testament to what a disaster Putin’s rule has been for Russia.

Conclusion

Wars can often contain multiple narratives. The US invasion of Iraq, for example, was originally pegged to removing Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction program before it shifted to fostering “democracy” for Iraqis. The US Civil War was originally launched to restore the sovereignty of the federal government before it shifted to eliminating slavery within the United States entirely. A war with multiple narratives does not necessarily portend either success or failure.

Rare are those wars, however, that push as many competing narratives as Russia has peddled in Ukraine. Indeed, it’s difficult to think of another war that has seen so many different justifications from the invading party. And it’s difficult to identify another war that has seen such a massive difference in scale of what those narratives are proposing, from simple territorial shifts to the entire reordering of the state of global affairs.

But as we’ve seen above, this is precisely what Russia has attempted with its invasion of Ukraine. From protecting pockets of Russians in the Donbas to ushering in an entirely new geopolitical era, from restoring a supposed Slavic unity to eliminating liberal values, the Kremlin’s justifications for its war have been breathtaking in their breadth.

They have also been a confused, muddled mess and a testament to just what a fiasco Russia’s entire war has been for Moscow. Instead of a clear-cut series of goals and aims, Russia’s leadership has flailed for excuses for its invasion, tossing idea after idea into the ether to see what might succeed. Such narrative confusion has stemmed, in large part, from Russia’s overall failures in Ukraine, forcing the Kremlin to reach for more and more justifications as the war drags on. At the same time, the confusion has played a significant role in Russia’s overall strategic failures in Ukraine and elsewhere; without a clear set of strategic goals, there’s little reason to think that tactical or battlefield successes would follow. Of course, much of this is also predicated on the Kremlin’s historical myopia as it pertains to Ukrainian history and Ukrainian nationhood; rather than a constituent part of some kind of Greater Russia, Ukraine is a distinct polity with a unique, separate history—a reality that hundreds of thousands of Russians have now died to learn. While Russia might continue to occupy sections of Ukrainian territory, the Kremlin has all but assured that a heavily armed Kyiv remains Russia’s greatest geopolitical foe for decades to come, if not longer.

For those looking forward, all this narrative confusion highlights one thing: there’s little reason to think Putin will be satisfied with simple recognition of Russian sovereignty over places such as Donetsk or Kherson. As Russian authorities have claimed, this war is about far more than the status of certain sections of eastern Ukraine, or even about Ukrainian membership in NATO. The Kremlin has far broader, and far more destabilizing, goals than simply dominating Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, or even necessarily toppling Kyiv. Ukraine is but a stepping stone to Putin’s far more sweeping goals of rolling back US and allied interests, reaffirming Russian dominance over all of its neighbors (China and North Korea excepted), and creating a world in which the rights of smaller nations are subject to the whims of a handful of great powers. Given Putin’s ongoing obstinacy about winding down the war and finding a so-called “off-ramp,” it is clear that, for him, this war is about far more than simply the territorial status of parts of eastern or southern Ukraine.

It is, indeed, a reflection of the Kremlin’s obsession with derzhavnost—an obsession of which Ukrainians have done everything they can to disabuse Russia. And it reflects the fact that what can end this war is not the status of places like Crimea or Donetsk oblasts, but a full and outright defeat of Russia. Anything less would simply tempt the Kremlin to try again—with another effort to upend the global order and another war to try making Russia great again.

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About the authors

Casey Michel is an author and journalist who writes extensively on international corruption, kleptocracy, national security, and Russia policy. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and many other outlets. His 2021 book, American Kleptocracy, was named by the Economist as one of the “best books to read to understand financial crime,” and his 2024 book Foreign Agents was named by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the “biggest foreign-policy book releases of 2024.” His next book, United States of Oligarchy, will be released in summer 2026.

He is based in New York, and is currently sanctioned by the Russian regime for his work.

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The post Narrating the war: Analyzing Russia’s narratives for its invasion of Ukraine appeared first on Atlantic Council.

‘Putin is lying’: Zelenskyy visits front to expose false claims of Russian gains

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 23:00:14 +0000

According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the invasion of Ukraine is going entirely according to plan, with Russian troops advancing everywhere and conquering all before them. This swaggering stance is intended to bolster Russian support for the war while demoralizing Ukrainians and deterring Kyiv’s partners. Most of all, it is designed to secure US President Donald Trump’s support for a Kremlin-friendly peace by convincing him that Russian victory is inevitable.

In order to maintain this air of inevitability, Putin stands accused of routinely inflating Russian battlefield achievements. At a time when Kyiv is already coming under mounting pressure to make painful concessions, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is clearly conscious of the dangers posed by these exaggerated claims. In a bid to expose the Kremlin’s disinformation efforts, Zelenskyy traveled personally to the front lines in eastern Ukraine last week to visit a city that Putin and his colleagues have repeatedly bragged of seizing.

Zelenskyy’s trip to Kupyansk came amid a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in the vicinity that resulted in significant gains. The selfie video he recorded during his visit was masterclass in wartime messaging that debunked Putin’s boasts while also underlining Ukraine’s continued ability to defeat Russia on the battlefield. “Putin publicly lied, claiming that Russian forces had already taken the city. So I went to Kupyansk myself to show the world that Putin is lying,” the Ukrainian leader commented. “We must keep exposing every single Russian falsehood because truth restores justice.”

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Kupyansk is a strategically important city located close to the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. It was occupied by Russian troops in the initial stages of the full-scale invasion before being liberated during Ukraine’s September 2022 counteroffensive. In recent months, the city has once again become a key target for the advancing Russian army, with Putin and his generals announcing the capture of Kupyansk on multiple occasions.

Putin’s proclamations of victory in Kupyansk began in late October, when he issued an invitation to international journalists and promised to provide them with safe passage to witness the encirclement of Ukrainian units trapped in the city. Days later, he told a meeting of Russia’s National Security Council that Kupyansk was “practically in the hands of Russian forces,” with victorious troops engaged in mopping up operations. “The city’s future has already been determined,” Putin stated.

On November 20, Russia’s top general Valery Gerasimov informed Putin that Russian forces had established full control over Kupyansk. The following day, Putin invoked the alleged fall of the city in an attempt to project Russian strength and intimidate Ukraine. “If Kyiv does not want to discuss President Trump’s proposals and refuses it, then both they and the European warmongers should understand the events that took place in Kupyansk will inevitably be repeated in other key areas of the front,” he warned.

Similarly bold Russian statements continued into the current month. On December 2, Putin remarked that Kupyansk had been under Russian occupation “for several weeks now,” and accused the Ukrainian authorities of being completely detached from reality. In fact, it is now apparent that Ukrainian assessments of the battle were broadly accurate, while Putin was guilty of spinning fantasies about the imaginary conquest of Kupyansk. Speaking on the outskirts of the evidently unconquered city, Zelenskyy openly mocked the Kremlin dictator’s dishonesty. “The Russians have had a lot to say about Kupyansk,” he commented. “The reality speaks for itself.”

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Zelenskyy’s latest front line appearance was much more than a high stakes photo opportunity or a chance to troll the Kremlin. In his selfie video, the Ukrainian leader acknowledged the importance of challenging false Russian narratives and stressed the need to shape international perceptions of the war in order to strengthen Ukraine’s negotiating position. “Today, achieving results on the front line is crucial so that Ukraine can achieve results in diplomacy,” he noted. “This is exactly how it works: All our strong positions within the country translate into strong positions in the negotiations to end the war.”

Ukraine’s recent gains in the Battle of Kupyansk do not alter the country’s precarious position at various other points along the vast front lines of Europe’s largest armed conflict since World War II. Nevertheless, Zelenskyy was right to shine a spotlight on the city. His headline-grabbing selfie video served as a timely reminder that Putin is a proven liar whose word cannot be trusted. It also confirmed that contrary to Kremlin propaganda, the Ukrainian army is far from collapse and remains a formidable fighting force.

These are exactly the messages Ukraine needs to convey to the current US administration. Donald Trump seems remarkably susceptible to Putin’s portrayal of Russia as an irresistible military force, and has repeatedly suggested that Ukraine should accept a Kremlin-friendly peace or risk destruction. The facts on the ground simply do not support this defeatist assessment.

While the Russian military holds the overall initiative and is currently advancing, it is grinding forward at glacial pace while suffering catastrophic losses. Nobody understands this better than Putin himself, who must be acutely aware that he would not need to exaggerate Russian gains and invent new triumphs if his invasion had not yielded such underwhelming results at so high a cost.

Last week’s front line visit by the Ukrainian leader underscored the fact that Russian victory is anything but inevitable. The military outlook for 2026 is actually far more nuanced. With enough international support, there is good reason to conclude that the Ukrainian army could replicate its recent Kupyansk success elsewhere and eventually stem the tide of Russia’s invasion. This is a realistic recipe for peace. Indeed, it may be the only way to pressure Moscow into serious negotiations. Putin wants the world to believe he cannot be beaten on the battlefield, but the Russian troops retreating from Kupyansk would likely tell a different story.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Analysts estimate that it could take years for Russia to occupy the area by force, and would likely cost the Kremlin hundreds of thousands of additional casualties. Beyond the fortress belt, the way would be open for further sweeping Russian advances into central Ukraine and toward Kyiv itself. This vital role in Ukraine’s overall defense explains why Putin is prepared to reduce his demands elsewhere but remains so eager for Kyiv to hand over this particular territory without a fight.

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Among Moscow’s many demands, the biggest red flag of all is the Kremlin’s determination to demilitarize Ukraine and deprive the country of international allies. Ever since the first round of peace talks during the initial months of the war, Putin has consistently sought to impose restrictions on the size of the Ukrainian military and the categories of weapons the country can possess. While recent drafts envision a Ukrainian army of 600,000 troops, the fact that Russia remains so keen on limiting Ukraine’s ability to defend itself is an unambiguous signal of Putin’s bad intentions.

Likewise, the Kremlin’s bitter opposition to continued international support for Ukraine betrays the reality behind Moscow’s current peace posturing. This extends far beyond Russia’s well-documented objections to Ukrainian membership of NATO. Putin’s negotiators also seek to block future arms supplies to Kyiv and have completely ruled out the possibility of even a symbolic Western troop presence in postwar Ukraine, while demonstrating a deep reluctance to accept anything resembling credible security guarantees.

Attempts to defend Russian objections on security grounds are unconvincing. Putin has debunked his own claims of a NATO security threat to Russia by reacting with obvious indifference to neighboring Finland’s NATO accession in 2022, just months after using the issue as a convenient pretext for the invasion of Ukraine. According to this bizarre Kremlin logic, Ukraine’s slim hopes of joining NATO in the distant future were sufficient grounds to unleash the largest European war since World War II, but Finland’s almost immediate membership of the alliance was “no problem” for Moscow, despite the fact that both countries share long land borders with Russia.

Putin’s refusal to countenance purely defensive commitments from Kyiv’s allies that are clearly designed to safeguard Ukrainian sovereignty is even harder to justify. If the Russian ruler intended to coexist with an independent Ukraine, he would surely recognize the need for international involvement in efforts to reestablish stability in the region. Instead, he has adopted the opposite approach. While Ukraine appeals for security guarantees, Putin seeks to guarantee Ukraine’s insecurity.

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The insincerity of Russia’s current approach to the US-led peace process should come as no surprise. After all, while Putin may be willing to consider a pause in hostilities if it comes on Kremlin-friendly terms, he simply cannot risk a peace deal that secures the continued existence of an independent Ukrainian state. Any settlement based on the present front lines of the war would leave around 80 percent of Ukraine beyond Kremlin control and free to continue along the path toward greater European integration. That is exactly what Putin is fighting to prevent.

The Kremlin dictator has always viewed his war against Ukraine in the broadest of historical contexts as a crusade to reverse the verdict of 1991 and return Russia to its rightful place as a global superpower. Like many of his contemporaries, Putin remains embittered by the Soviet collapse and determined to avenge what he perceives as modern Russia’s humiliating fall from grace. This has fuelled his obsession with independent Ukraine, which he has come to regard as the ultimate symbol of the historical injustice resulting from the breakup of the USSR.

Putin’s increasingly rabid opposition to Ukrainian independence reflects his Cold War experience as a KGB officer in East Germany, where he witnessed the disintegration of the Soviet Empire firsthand. This traumatic experience has helped to convince him that the Ukrainian state-building project now poses an existential threat to Russia itself. If Ukraine is able to consolidate its statehood and emerge as a recognizably European democracy, Putin fears this could serve as a catalyst for the next phase in a Russian imperial retreat that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Over the past two decades, Putin’s determination to undermine Ukrainian statehood has come to dominate his entire reign and has led directly to a new Cold War. From the 2004 Orange Revolution to the 2014 seizure of Crimea and the full-scale invasion of 2022, Ukraine has been at the epicenter of each new milestone in the deteriorating relationship between Russia and the West.

Time after time, Putin has demonstrated his readiness to sacrifice all other Russian national interests in his quest to subjugate Ukraine and force the country permanently back into the Kremlin orbit. He has reversed decades of integration into Western economies, placed Russian society on a wartime footing, and sent hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers to their deaths. It is deeply delusional to think that he is now suddenly ready to abandon all of this and accept the reality of Ukrainian independence in exchange for the marginal gains of a compromise peace.

Putin’s own position during peace talks betrays his complete lack of interest in ending the war. His territorial demands would rob Ukraine of crucial fortifications and set the stage for further Russian advances, while his calls for restrictions on the Ukrainian armed forces and Kyiv’s ability to maintain military ties with the West would leave postwar Ukraine disarmed and defenseless. In isolation, any of these demands would look deeply suspect. Taken together, they represent overwhelming evidence of Putin’s intention to continue the invasion.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Every city the Russian military bombs, every child it kidnaps, every Ukrainian life it destroys today can only be understood within the long genealogy of Russia’s imperialistic state ideology. For centuries, this violent brand of expansionism has been directed at Ukraine.

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The present full-scale invasion of Ukraine will soon pass the four-year mark, but the war did not begin in 2022. It was preceded by eight years of warfare in eastern Ukraine following Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea. This has been recognized by the European Court of Human Rights, which has ruled that Russia has been conducting sustained military operations in Ukraine since at least 2014. But even this is only the most recent chapter in a far older story.

During the eras of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, the authorities consistently pursued policies aimed at dismantling Ukrainian identity. Tactics included banning the Ukrainian language, repressing cultural and religious leaders, and imprisoning advocates of Ukrainian independence.

Most devastatingly, Stalin and his regime engineered an artificial famine in the 1930s that killed at least four million Ukrainians in less than two years. Today, this deliberate mass starvation of Ukrainians is known as the Holodomor (“killing by hunger”). No outlier, the Holodomor was central to a broader Soviet campaign aimed at breaking Ukrainian resistance and other assertions of political autonomy. The lawyer who coined the term “genocide,” Raphael Lemkin, identified this attempt to destroy the Ukrainian nation as the “classic example” of Soviet genocide.

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What unites these episodes is not only the violence itself but the ideology behind it. Moscow’s long history of crimes in Ukraine reflects an imperial worldview that treats human beings as resources to be harnessed for the state and as obstacles to be eliminated in the pursuit of total domination.

This ideology has evolved over time, but its core logic has remained remarkably consistent. Crucially, it has never faced sustained, meaningful repudiation by the international community. Because it was never confronted, Russia’s imperial ideology has been allowed to regenerate. A clear line of impunity links Stalin’s starvation of Ukrainian society in the 1930s to today’s Kremlin rhetoric insisting Ukraine is not a real nation at all.

This continuity is not abstract; it directly shapes present-day atrocities. When a state views humans as raw material for empire, the kidnapping and forced Russification of thousands of Ukrainian children becomes an acceptable instrument of policy rather than an aberration. This logic also applies to other aspects of the current invasion including filtration camps, torture chambers, rape and sexual violence, and mass deportations, along with the systematic destruction of Ukrainian cultural and religious life throughout every area under Russian control.

Ukraine’s top prosecutor notes that the number of open war crimes investigations has reached 178,391 documented cases. Indicating deliberate Kremlin policy, the former US ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice recently stated that Russian atrocities in Ukraine are “systematic” and have been identified “literally everywhere that Russia’s troops have been deployed.”

The current actions of Putin’s occupation forces in Ukraine are the same state practices that have long defined Russian imperial rule: Absorb what can be absorbed, erase what cannot, and turn the conquered into fuel for the next stage of expansion.

Russia’s genocidal intent is not limited to eliminating Ukrainian identity. Putin’s extreme ideology drives him to pursue the incorporation of Ukrainians into Russia’s war machine against the West. The danger is not only the destruction of Ukraine as a nation, but the possibility that Russia will assimilate as much of Ukraine’s territory, cutting-edge technology, and population as it can before continuing further.

Contemporary Russian rhetoric makes this explicit. Strikingly, the Putin era has witnessed the resurgence of the slogan “We can do it again.” Originally graffiti scrawled on the Reichstag by Red Army soldiers in 1945, the popularity of this phrase surged after Russia’s 2014 occupation of Crimea to become a menacing mantra of modern Russian nationalism that signals a society intent on conquest and domination.

The atrocities we are witnessing today in Ukraine reflect centuries of Russian impunity. Impunity not only allows perpetrators to continue; it invites them to escalate. Russia’s imperial ideology has never been confronted with the kind of accountability needed to dismantle it. As long as this ideology persists unchallenged, the threat will not stop at Ukraine’s borders.

The international community now finds itself confronted with the consequences of a genocidal worldview that has been left intact for generations. The urgent question is not only how to halt Russia’s genocidal actions against Ukrainians today, but how to ensure that the world finally repudiates the extremist ideology that made this war possible. Without that repudiation, millions of Russians will remain convinced that they can, in fact, “do it again.”

Kristina Hook is assistant professor of conflict management at Kennesaw State University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

While Zelenskyy is understandably eager not to alienate Trump, there is little optimism in Kyiv or across Europe that this latest US initiative can end the continent’s largest invasion since World War II. Multiple similar attempts to secure a settlement by offering the Kremlin generous terms have already been made without success.

This approach reflects a fundamental failure to recognize that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not driven by the same straightforward cost-benefit rationality as his Western counterparts. On the contrary, Putin believes he is engaged in an existential struggle to revive Russia’s great power status and secure his own place in history. It is therefore delusional to think that he can be satisfied by promises of minor territorial concessions or future economic opportunities.

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The disconnect between Moscow and Western capitals over Russia’s war aims has been most immediately apparent during Trump’s attempts to broker a peace agreement. Since February 2025, US-led discussions over a possible negotiated settlement have featured plenty of vague talk about lucrative joint ventures and potential US investments in Russia. Some Trump administration members may have interpreted the prominent role of Putin’s economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev as a positive signal that Moscow is open to such overtures. However, promises of business opportunities have not translated into any meaningful progress toward peace.

Trump has also often given the impression that he views the issue of a territorial settlement between Russia and Ukraine from the perspective of a real estate developer solving a property dispute. The US leader has spoken of the need for “land swaps” and described Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine as “prime territory,” while indicating that the two sides should sit down and agree on new boundaries. This overlooks the awkward but important fact that Putin is not actually fighting for Ukrainian land. He is fighting for Ukraine itself, and will regard the war as lost unless he is able to reassert complete Russian dominance over the whole country.

Another issue that highlights the tendency of Western leaders to project their own logic onto Putin is the topic of Russian military losses. Western officials and media outlets often identify the extremely high Russian casualty figures in Ukraine as a key argument for ending the war, while pointing to Russia’s slow advance as evidence that the invasion has reached a strategic stalemate.

From a Western perspective, this makes perfect sense. But high casualty rates are a traditional feature in the Russian army, which has always relied on mass to win wars. Furthermore, Putin has been careful to make sure his army’s heavy losses in Ukraine do not destabilize the domestic front. Since 2022, the Kremlin has focused recruitment efforts on the poorest provinces of Russia and has enlisted large numbers of inmates from the country’s vast prison network, while also offering extremely attractive financial packages to volunteers. This has helped reduce any social pressures to a minimum, despite the high death toll of the invasion.

Some Western leaders have sought to strike a chord by underlining the damage Putin is doing to Russia’s long-term prospects and his own legacy. Outgoing British MI6 chief Richard Moore offered a good example of this in his September 2025 farewell speech, which highlighted the threats posed by the ongoing invasion of Ukraine to Russia’s economic and demographic outlook. Moore’s logic would certainly have resonated with Western policymakers and electorates, but it meant little to an ageing autocrat guided by imperial delusions and his own distorted reading of history.

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If Western leaders wish to end the war, they must stop trying to implement peace plans that they themselves would find persuasive and accept that Putin’s motivations are altogether different. He sees the invasion of Ukraine as part of a sacred historic mission that will define his reign and determine Russia’s place in the world for decades to come. Extinguishing Ukrainian independence is only one part of this process. Putin ultimately aims to reshape the global order and end what he sees as the period of geopolitical humiliation suffered by Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Most of all, Western policymakers must finally come to grips with the sheer scale of Putin’s imperial ambitions and acknowledge the central role these ambitions play in fueling Russian aggression in Ukraine and beyond. This would be long overdue. Since 2022, Putin has publicly compared himself to Russian Emperor Peter the Great. He frequently claims to be returning historically Russian lands, and has declared that “all Ukraine is ours.”

Attempting to bargain with such a man by appealing to common sense or offering limited concessions is worse than futile; it actually helps convince Putin that his Western opponents are too weak and overindulged to grasp the historical significance of the moment. This makes him more confident than ever that his enemies will ultimately back down and hand him victory in Ukraine.

Instead of trying to appease Russia, Ukraine’s allies must first admit that Putin is playing for the highest possible stakes and has no interest whatsoever in a compromise peace. They must then demonstrate that they have the political will to prevent his twisted imperial fantasies from becoming reality.

Mykola Bielieskov is a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior analyst at Ukrainian NGO “Come Back Alive.” The views expressed in this article are the author’s personal position and do not reflect the opinions or views of NISS or Come Back Alive.

Axis of authoritarians poses mounting threat on the global information front

William Dixon, Maksym Beznosiuk — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 20:19:56 +0000

Ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, there has been growing alarm over the support that Moscow is receiving from fellow authoritarian regimes including Iran, North Korea, Belarus, and China. However, while Western officials have publicly raised concerns over material support for the Russian war effort, the issue of cooperation in the information sphere has received less attention.

This is short-sighted. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the critical importance of the information front in modern conflicts. The lessons of the war in Ukraine have not been lost on the Kremlin, which invests vast sums to finance information operations and has repeatedly used disinformation to destabilize its opponents. China is also well aware of the increasing role played by information capabilities and has established a range of powerful tools. This is creating potentially significant challenges for Western policymakers.

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Many Western countries continue to view the issue of information warfare as primarily a matter of fact-checking and debunking fakes. In contrast, there are growing indications that Moscow and Beijing share a vision of the information space as a key element of their power projection and national security strategies.

A recent meeting between Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang signaled deepening cooperation between Moscow and Beijing on the information front. The annual summit held in Hangzhou in early November featured commitments from both sides to partner on media initiatives, countering disinformation, and promoting traditional values.

Moscow already has extensive experience in information operations designed to disrupt and reshape Europe’s political landscape, and is widely regarded as a global pioneer in the use of multimedia information operations to advance foreign policy objectives. Beijing has also faced accusations of playing a role in these activities, which are aimed at exploiting social divisions and boosting polarizing narratives with a view to generating support for anti-establishment political forces throughout the Western world.

While measuring the success of information operations is not an exact science, there is certainly no shortage of evidence to suggest that these tactics are having an impact. Support for far-right political parties is now surging across Europe. While each party has its own individual agenda, these populist political forces tend to share a sympathetic stance toward Russia while enjoying extensive coverage on Kremlin-linked media platforms.

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Perhaps the clearest indication of cooperation between Russia and China in the information arena is the growing Russian state media presence on TikTok. This is alleged to include coordinated campaigns and the use of AI technologies.

Disinformation watchdogs from Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council have accused the Kremlin of using the TikTok platform to conduct information campaigns designed to demoralize Ukrainian society and undermine resistance to Russia’s invasion. Ukrainian officials claim Moscow has employed AI to create videos featuring “ordinary Ukrainians” conveying pessimistic messages.

Russia is also reportedly using Chinese social media platforms to recruit Chinese citizens for the war in Ukraine. The large volume of recruitment adverts across China’s strictly controlled and monitored social media sphere has been interpreted by some as a sign of tacit approval from the authorities in Beijing.

Chinese and Russian information ecosystems appear to be engaging in significant cross-promotion. Kremlin outlets actively promote war-related content on platforms such as China’s Weibo. Meanwhile, Chinese state media and officials amplify key Kremlin narratives blaming the West for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and framing sanctions policies as self-defeating. Both Beijing and Moscow employ similar language to describe the war in Ukraine, which they typically depict as a defensive reaction to the West’s provocative policies.

As information cooperation between Moscow, Beijing, and other authoritarian regimes expands, Western policymakers must recognize that information warfare is now a tier-one national security threat requiring a comprehensive response. This should include signaling that information offensives will be treated as comparable to other violations of sovereignty, with the European Union and NATO working to establish clear diplomatic, legal, and economic red lines in the information domain.

Efforts must be undertaken to defend the information space more effectively by combining the initiatives of individual governments along with civil society. This could draw on a wide range of specific examples, such as Ukraine’s wartime experience and recent elections in Romania and Moldova. Greater accountability for hostile information operations is also crucial. Western governments must be prepared to publicly expose attacks and impose tangible costs.

The authoritarian axis that has taken shape since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is currently setting new standards in terms of coordinated information operations across media platforms. The West’s response must be equally systematic. The tools and frameworks exist; Western governments must now demonstrate the necessary political will.

William Dixon is an associate fellow of the Royal United Service Institute specializing in cyber and international security issues. Maksym Beznosiuk is a strategic policy and security analyst with a focus on Ukraine, Russia, European security, and EU-Ukraine cooperation.

Vladimir Putin fears entering Russian history as the man who lost Ukraine

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 21:47:02 +0000

The invasion unleashed by Vladimir Putin almost four years ago has often been called unprovoked, but nobody can say it was entirely unexpected. On the contrary, the full-scale invasion of 2022 was merely the latest and most extreme stage in a prolonged campaign of escalating Russian aggression aimed at preventing Ukraine from leaving the Kremlin orbit and resuming its place among the European community of nations.

During the early years of Putin’s reign, this campaign had focused primarily on massive interference in Ukrainian domestic affairs. Following Ukraine’s 2014 Revolution of Dignity, the Russian dictator opted for a far more forceful combination of military and political intervention. When even this descent into open aggression failed to derail Kyiv’s westward trajectory, Putin sought to solve Russia’s Ukraine problem once and for all by launching the largest European invasion since World War II.

As the fifth year of the war looms on the horizon, there is very little to indicate that Putin’s hard line tactics are working. While Russia has managed to occupy around 20 percent of Ukraine, opinion in the remaining 80 percent of the country is now overwhelmingly hostile to Moscow and supportive of closer European ties. For the vast majority of people in Ukraine, the invasions of 2014 and 2022 represent watershed moments that have profoundly impacted their understanding of Ukrainian identity while radically reshaping attitudes toward Russia.

The transformation in Ukraine’s geopolitical orientation is being mirrored by changes taking place domestically as the country’s center of gravity shifts decisively from east to west. For the first decade or so of independence, Ukraine was politically and economically dominated by the industrial east, with major cities including Donetsk, Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia serving as power bases for billionaire oligarch clans who shaped the Ukrainian national narrative and helped maintain high levels of Russian influence across the country. At the time, the comparatively quaint cities of central and western Ukraine lacked the wealth and general wherewithal to compete.

The first indication of a significant change in this dynamic was the 2004 Orange Revolution, which saw an unprecedented nationwide protest movement erupt over an attempt to falsify the country’s presidential election orchestrated by Kremlin-backed political forces rooted firmly in eastern Ukraine. This popular uprising represented a clear and unambiguous rejection of the idea that Ukraine was inextricably bound to Russia. A decade later, the onset of Russian military aggression would turbo-charge modern Ukraine’s historic turn toward the west.

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Since 2014, traditional east Ukrainian bastions of Russian influence such as Donetsk and Luhansk have been occupied by Kremlin forces and effectively cut off from the rest of Ukraine. More recently, the full-scale invasion has left the broader Donbas region devastated and depopulated, while the formerly preeminent metropolises of the east face an uncertain future as fortified front line cities under relentless Russian bombardment.

The situation in western Ukraine is strikingly different. Cities throughout the region are experiencing rapid growth thanks to an influx of families and businesses seeking to relocate away from the war zone. The experience of Lviv since 2022 illustrates this trend. The largest city in western Ukraine, Lviv’s population has expanded by around a quarter since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion to reach approximately one million. The Lviv real estate market has comfortably surpassed the regional capitals of eastern Ukraine and now rivals Kyiv itself. Likewise, Lviv is also second only to the Ukrainian capital in terms of new companies and investments.

Politically and diplomatically, Lviv is clearly in the ascendancy. Many Kyiv embassies partially relocated to the city in 2022 and continue to maintain a presence. Over the past three years, Lviv has hosted a number of high-level international events including presidential summits and gatherings of EU ministers. The rise of Lviv has been so striking that it has sparked rumors of jealousy among the establishment in Kyiv, with some suggesting that the potential reopening of Lviv International Airport has been deliberately sidelined in order to prevent the further eclipse of the Ukrainian capital.

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Whatever happens in the war, the shift in Ukraine’s national center of gravity toward the west of the country is unlikely to be reversed. In addition to the urgent impetus provided by Russia’s ongoing invasion, the emergence of western Ukraine is also being driven by the pull factor of EU integration. Over the past decade, Ukraine has secured visa-free EU travel and been granted official EU candidate status. This is transforming the investment climate in western Ukraine, which shares borders with four EU member states.

Large-scale infrastructure projects are already helping to cement western Ukraine’s status as the country’s most attractive region and gateway to the EU. Work on a 22km European-gauge railway line from the EU border to Uzhhorod was completed earlier this year, while construction of a far more ambitious Euro-gauge line connecting Lviv to the Polish border is scheduled to begin in 2026. As the EU accession process continues to gain momentum, these logistical links will only strengthen.

It remains unclear exactly when Ukraine will become a fully fledged EU member state, but there is a growing sense of confidence throughout the country that the once distant dream of EU membership is now finally within reach. For western Ukraine in particular, joining the European Union will complete the region’s historic journey from imperial outpost on the fringes of the Soviet Empire to economic engine nestled in the heart of the world’s largest single market.

All this is very bad news for Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin dictator’s Ukraine obsession reflects his fear that the consolidation of a democratic, European, and genuinely independent Ukraine could serve as a catalyst for the next phase in the long Russian retreat from empire that began almost four decades ago with the fall of the Berlin Wall. As Putin’s reign has progressed, his determination to prevent Ukraine’s geopolitical defection has only intensified, as has his readiness to sacrifice Russia’s more immediate national interests in pursuit of his anti-Ukrainian crusade. It is now increasingly obvious that his decision to invade Ukraine has backfired spectacularly, eroding centuries of Russian influence while accelerating the European integration he so bitterly opposes.

Unless Putin succeeds in dismantling Ukrainian statehood entirely and erasing the very idea of the Ukrainian nation, he must surely realize that the Ukraine of the postwar period is now destined to establish itself within the wider Western world while remaining implacably hostile to Russia. Rather than acknowledging this disastrous outcome, he will seek to continue the war indefinitely. If he stops now and accepts a compromise peace, Putin knows he will be doomed to enter Russian history as the man who lost Ukraine.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

The Kremlin dictator is particularly fond of showcasing new weapons with nuclear capabilities. In late October, Putin announced the successful testing of the nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable Burevestnik missile. “This is a unique product that nobody else in the world has,” he commented. Days later, Putin hailed the similarly successful testing of the Poseidon drone, an atomic-powered and nuclear-capable underwater weapon. He trumpeted the Poseidon’s supposedly unmatched capabilities and stated that “there is no way to intercept it.”

It is impossible to independently assess the veracity of Putin’s claims or confirm the effectiveness of his latest alleged “wonder weapons.” Many have noted that neither weapon is entirely new, with the development of both being first announced back in 2018. In reality, the timing of these alleged tests is probably far more significant that the weapons themselves, and reflects Russia’s desire to engage in yet more nuclear saber-rattling.

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Russia’s latest bout of nuclear posturing reveals much about Moscow’s frustration over continued Western support for Ukraine, and is likely a direct response to strong energy sector sanctions imposed in recent weeks by US President Donald Trump. It is a tactic that could eventually backfire on the Kremlin. By threatening to renew nuclear tests and boasting of unstoppable nuclear-capable wonder weapons, Putin risks highlighting Russia’s inability to project strength via more conventional means. In other words, the Kremlin dictator’s increasingly frequent use of nuclear blackmail may actually be a sign of weakness rather than strength.

Like a geopolitical gangster, Putin has come to rely on Mafia-style intimidation tactics as he seeks to reassert Russia’s great power status amid mounting evidence of his country’s steadily eroding military capabilities. Putin’s nuclear threats are at least in part an attempt to distract attention from the lackluster performance of the Russian army in Ukraine. While Russian forces currently hold the battlefield initiative and continue to advance, they have only managed to seize around one percent of Ukrainian territory over the past three years while suffering exceptionally high losses. This underwhelming outcome led Trump to brand Russia a “paper tiger” in September. The insult is believed to have struck a particularly raw nerve with Putin.

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By brandishing his nuclear arsenal on the international stage, Putin aims to menace risk-averse Western leaders and deter them from opposing Russia in Ukraine. He also hopes to underline that victory over Ukraine remains Moscow’s overriding goal. Putin seeks to demonstrate his readiness to prioritize this quest for victory above all other considerations, including the nuclear deterrence system established over decades by Russia and the United States.

So far, Trump has offered a fairly robust reaction to Russia’s nuclear saber-rattling. This has included ordering US nuclear submarines to be moved closer to Russia in response to “provocative statements,” and indicating a readiness to resume nuclear testing “on an equal basis.” The US leader’s stance is a welcome sign that he is no longer easily swayed by Putin’s dramatics and recognizes the dangers of allowing himself to be intimidated.

Other Western leaders should now follow Trump’s example and acknowledge that the only way to bring Putin’s reckless nuclear blackmail to an end is by demonstrating resolve and reviving deterrence. This must include regenerating sufficient European and American conventional forces to deter Russia from attacking its neighbors. In parallel, sanctions on Putin’s war economy should be tightened, while Ukraine must finally be provided with the weapons its needs to defeat Russia’s invasion.

Nobody can afford to to take the risk of nuclear war lightly, of course. Nevertheless, it is unfortunately necessary to remind the Kremlin that Russia is not the only country with a nuclear arsenal. Genuine conventional and nuclear deterrence must be restored to deprive gamblers like Putin of the ability, let alone the desire, to employ nuclear blackmail in order to enable further acts of international aggression. Unless this is achieved, Putin will continue to use nuclear threats as a tool to intimidate his opponents and disguise Russian weakness.

Stephen Blank is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Putin seeks more foreign fighters amid mounting Russian losses in Ukraine

David Kirichenko — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 20:55:05 +0000

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches the four-year mark, Moscow is facing increasing difficulties replenishing the ranks of its invading army. With fewer Russians now prepared to volunteer, the Kremlin is seeking to recruit more foreign fighters to serve in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s colonial war.

A number of recent media reports have highlighted the growing role of foreign nationals in the Russian military. In early October, an Indian citizen was captured by Ukrainian forces while fighting for Russia. The 22 year old claimed to have been arrested in Russia while studying and pressured into signing a contract with the Russian army in order to secure his release from prison. After just two weeks of basic training, he was sent to the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

Also in early October, the Los Angeles Times reported that Russia may have recruited tens of thousands of foreign fighters via social media, with many coming from disadvantaged countries across the Middle East, Africa, and East Asia. The article detailed how many of these recruits are allegedly enticed with offers of generous benefits including large salaries and Russian citizenship in exchange for military service in non-combat roles. In practice, however, most are soon sent straight into battle.

Meanwhile, a group of more than twenty Kenyan men were rescued from a suspected human trafficking ring in September following a raid on a residential complex in Nairobi. The men had reportedly been promised jobs in Russia but were set to be sent to fight in Ukraine. The multi-agency operation highlighted growing concerns that Moscow is stepping up efforts to lure African men to Russia and forcing them to join the Russian army.

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The single largest contingent of foreigners currently fighting for Russia may be Cubans. An October 2 cable from the US State Department sent to dozens of US diplomatic missions claimed that up to 5000 Cuban nationals are currently serving in the ranks of Putin’s army. Ukrainian officials say the total number could actually be far higher and estimate that as many as 20,000 Cubans may have been recruited by Russia.

While Russian officials have typically been tight-lipped about the presence of foreigners in the country’s military, some have recently acknowledged the growing presence of Cuban troops. Andrey Kartapolov, who heads the Russian Parliament’s Defense Committee, defended the practice of recruiting Cubans and indicated that many more may soon be joining the invasion of Ukraine. “If young people from Cuba want to help our country, there is nothing strange about that,” he commented.

This increasing openness has also been evident in relation to the participation North Korean soldiers in Russia’s war. When reports first emerged of North Korean troops being deployed to Russia in late 2024, the Kremlin responded with a series of denials. Months later, Putin himself officially confirmed the presence of a North Korean contingent. “We will always honor the Korean heroes who gave their lives for Russia, for our common freedom, on an equal basis with their Russian brothers in arms,” he commented in April 2025.

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It is easy to understand why Moscow is so interested in enlisting foreigners to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to Britain’s Ministry of Defense, more than one million Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the start of the full-scale invasion, making the current war by far the costliest undertaken by the Kremlin since World War II.

The human wave tactics favored by Russian commanders require a steady supply of fresh troops, but Moscow is reluctant to conscript large numbers of Russian civilians into the army. A partial mobilization in September 2022 sparked a major backlash, with hundreds of thousands of Russians fleeing the country to avoid wartime service. Instead, the Kremlin has focused on sourcing manpower from Russia’s prison population and attracting volunteers by offering increasingly large financial incentives. CNN reports that numerous Russian regions have dramatically increased the amounts they offer to new recruits in recent months amid a decline in volunteers.

There are growing indications that the current approach may no longer be enough to compensate for Russia’s heavy losses on the front lines in Ukraine. The number of new recruits receiving signing-on bonuses during the second quarter of 2025 was the lowest in two years, according to research by independent Russian investigative outlet iStories based on Russian federal budget data. The outlet’s findings indicated that around 38,000 people volunteered for military service between April and June 2025, two and a half times lower than the figure for the same period one year earlier.

The Kremlin’s appetite for foreign fighters is not merely an attempt to make up the numbers. Crucially, Moscow also regards the recruitment of non-Russian troops as significantly cheaper and less politically risky. Since 2022, the Kremlin has established an extensive system of compensation payments for Russian soldiers killed or wounded in Ukraine. None of this applies to foreigners. Likewise, every Russian military death on the Ukrainian front lines risks fueling anti-war sentiment at home, while casualties from faraway lands have virtually no impact on Russian public sentiment.

These factors have encouraged Putin and other Kremlin leaders to view foreign fighters as an expendable alternative to dwindling numbers of Russian recruits. “If a foreigner dies, there are no social payouts and no responsibility. There are no relatives inside Russia who are unhappy with the war, and of course there are fewer dead Russians,” Ukrainian Military Intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov told US Congress officials in September.

Moscow’s efforts to secure more foreign troops are an indication of the mounting manpower challenges confronting the Kremlin. Russia is still a very long way from running out of soldiers, but Putin has no more easy options as he seeks to replenish his decimated invasion force and continue the war into a fifth year. With declining numbers of Russians prepared to risk their lives in exchange for financial incentives, Putin may have to choose between a deeply unpopular mobilization or a further expansion of Russia’s international recruitment campaign. Neither option is likely to produce the kind of skilled and motivated fighting force capable of defeating Ukraine.

The presence of assorted Cubans, North Koreans, Indians, Africans, and other foreign troops within Putin’s military directly undermines widespread but misleading notions of Russia’s limitless resources. In reality, the Russian army in Ukraine is increasingly overstretched and may be far more vulnerable than Moscow would like us to believe. This should motivate Kyiv’s partners to expand their support for the Ukrainian war effort. Putin currently has no interest in ending his invasion, but the prospect of military defeat could force him to accept the necessity of a negotiated peace deal.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

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Russia is said to have invested heavily in the recent campaign to shape the outcome of Moldova’s election. This included everything from financial incentives to disinformation campaigns. A BBC investigation found evidence of a Russian-funded network that paid people to post fake news online and organize rigged polls showing inflated levels of support for pro-Kremlin parties.

Social media was a key battleground in the Kremlin’s efforts to interfere in the election. Information warfare watchdogs claim Russia recruited operatives locally and employed AI technologies to create large quantities of fake accounts and flood Moldovan social media platforms with disinformation attacking President Sandu and her political party.

The scale of Russia’s efforts caused considerable alarm in Chisinau. Days before the vote, Sandu accused the Kremlin of spending hundreds of millions of euros on an election interference campaign in order to buy votes and “intoxicate” the Molodvan electorate with misleading and often inflammatory online content.

The Moldovan authorities also uncovered evidence of illicit financing including undeclared cash flows and cryptocurrency schemes. Just two days before the vote, Moldova’s Central Electoral Commission barred one pro-Kremlin party from running following a court ruling over allegations of voter bribery, illegal party financing, and money laundering.

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Russia’s attempt to sway the elections in Moldova ultimately failed. The reasons for this failure are instructive. Moldova’s state institutions deserve credit for displaying impressive vigilance and resolve. This included enforcing election campaign financing laws, acting to counter disinformation, and communicating clearly with the electorate.

Moscow’s plans may also have been undermined by corruption among those entrusted with the task of interfering in the Moldovan election. Some of the Kremlin’s local partners allegedly pocketed cash themselves rather than paying for influence operations or using allocated funds to bribe potential voters.

The decisive role was played by the Moldovan electorate. Despite Russia’s extensive efforts to discredit the pro-European camp with all manner of lurid fakes and conspiracy theories, Sandu’s electoral platform of European integration, transparency, and reform received majority backing from the Moldovan public.

This overwhelming pro-European victory highlighted modern Russia’s lack of a coherent ideology or convincing counter-narrative. While Kremlin operatives are experts in the dark arts of negative campaigning, they struggle to offer anything that can compete with the undeniable appeal of democratic rights, higher living standards, and the rule of law.

Moldova’s election is a case study in the limits of Russian interference operations. Moscow invested considerable resources in the campaign, but was ultimately unable to overcome the country’s institutional safeguards or persuade enough Moldovan voters to turn against the ruling authorities.

The lessons from Moldova seem clear: Russian election interference operations represent a genuine and persistent threat to all democratic countries and need to be taken seriously. However, as the Moldovan experience has demonstrated, an informed electorate, resilient democratic systems, and vigilant law enforcement can blunt even large-scale Kremlin campaigns.

Moldova is now in a strong position to advance further along the path toward European integration. This is also good news for Ukraine, which would have faced the prospect of a possible new front in the war with Russia if pro-Kremlin forces had won control of the Moldovan parliament. For Moscow, meanwhile, the vote was one more indication that Russia is losing influence throughout the former Soviet Empire and is struggling to compete with the more compelling ideas of its democratic opponents.

Kateryna Odarchenko is a partner at SIC Group Ukraine.

John E Herbst (@JohnEdHerbst): Senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former US ambassador to Ukraine
Victoria Olari (@Olari_Victoria): Research associate for Moldova at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab
Alex Șerban: Senior advisor for the Atlantic Council’s Romania Office and nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative

A ‘historic’ outcome

With the PAS outperforming pre-election polls, “the impact of this election will be historic,” says John, who recently visited the capital Chișinău. Given Sandu’s “rock solid” commitment to reforms, her party “should be able to pass the legislation needed to deliver EU membership,” he says.
“The outcome is unequivocal” as a signal of the country’s pro-Western direction, says Victoria. “PAS not only dominated among the diaspora, as in the presidential elections, but also placed first in most districts across the country, giving it broad legitimacy,” she says, adding that other pro-European parties also will enter parliament, a sign that the “overwhelming share” of Moldovans want a European future.
Alex notes that, in addition to Russian meddling, the PAS also overcame domestic challenges: “Despite unpopular economic measures and criticism over slow rule-of-law reforms, voters again endorsed the European path.”

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The Kremlin falls short

Because of the ruling party’s orientation toward Europe and away from Russia, “Moscow not only backed multiple parties in the election but used its full bag of dirty tricks to try to block a victory for the PAS,” says John.
The pro-Russian parties’ electoral defeat was a “a sharp rebuke to Moscow’s influence operations,” Victoria tells us. She points to evidence of Russia spending hundreds of millions of dollars; disinformation spreading across TikTok, Facebook, and Telegram; accusations of electoral corruption; and intensifying cyberattacks. Despite all this, “Russia failed to sway the Moldovan vote,” she writes.
Another one of the Kremlin’s efforts to sway the vote was calling for mass protests if the PAS won. This plan, “has already been launched,” says John. Igor Dodon, leader of the pro-Russian Patriotic Electoral Bloc, “did not wait for the first returns to come in to publicly declare that he had actually won the elections.” He led a demonstration outside the parliament building on Monday, which reportedly drew about one hundred protesters.

What’s next?

Leaders across the continent were quick to congratulate the PAS on its victory and express their support for Moldova’s embrace of Europe, Alex tells us. This included expressions of support from Romania’s government, EU officials, and a joint message from the French, German, and Polish governments that “signaled EU resolve to anchor Moldova in Europe’s political and security architecture,” says Alex.
But challenges remain for the leadership of a country that remains politically divided and vulnerable to Russian interference, Alex notes. “Moscow is unlikely to abandon efforts to stir instability,” particularly in the separatist regions of Transnistria and Gagauzia, he says.
“Any missteps” from the PAS government, says Alex, “whether from weak institutions or stalled reforms, could reignite political turbulence and turn the clock back on popular support.”

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Trump called Russia a ‘paper tiger’ because he believes Putin is losing

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 20:41:25 +0000

US President Donald Trump made headlines this week with a social media post that suggested a dramatic shift in his position on the Russia-Ukraine War. After months of insisting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “doesn’t have the cards” and must “make a deal” involving sweeping concessions to the Kremlin, Trump suddenly declared on September 23 that Ukraine was now “in a position to fight and win all of Ukraine back in its original form.”

Much of Trump’s post focused on taunting Putin over his faltering invasion. In characteristically abrasive language, the US leader mocked the Russian army’s lack of progress in Ukraine and suggested Moscow was facing major economic problems due to the spiraling cost of the war. “Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a war that should have taken a real military power less than a week to win,” Trump wrote. “This is not distinguishing Russia. In fact, it is very much making them look like a paper tiger.”

Many commentators chose to leap on Trump’s statement as proof of a major change in US policy toward Ukraine. In fact, the post contained nothing that suggested a new approach to relations between Washington and Kyiv. On the contrary, Trump stressed that it would now now be up to Europe to take the lead in supporting Ukraine.

While the US President repeatedly asserted that Ukraine could defeat Russia, there was no indication that America was ready to increase its support for the Ukrainian war effort or expand sanctions against Moscow. Instead, Trump limited himself to confirming that the US will continue to sell weapons to Ukraine via NATO partners. In other words, the Trump administration’s stance on the war is set to remain largely unchanged. However, instead of pressing Ukraine to accept a Kremlin-friendly peace deal, Trump is now openly talking about Ukrainian victory.

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What caused President Trump’s rather radical change in tone? Putin’s relentless stalling tactics and his shameless backtracking have no doubt played a role, exhausting the US leader’s patience and making him look foolish for touting their alleged personal friendship. Trump himself has suggested that his new assessment of the war is based on a detailed understanding of the current military and economic situation in Russia and Ukraine. This version has been endorsed by US Vice President JD Vance, who commented this week that Trump has “grown very confident this war is bad for Russia.”

It is not difficult to imagine how intelligence briefings on the current state of the war in Ukraine might have convinced Trump to revise his earlier assumptions regarding Russia’s economic and military might. Putin’s recent summer offensive was billed as a potential turning point in the war but has clearly failed to achieve its objectives. Russian troops were unable to secure any major breakthroughs during the summer months and have made little progress toward the establishment of a border buffer zone in northern Ukraine. This underwhelming outcome was entirely in line with broader battlefield trends that have seen Russia forces seize less than one percent of Ukrainian territory over the past three years.

Russia’s modest gains have come at a terrible price. While neither Moscow nor Kyiv release official casualty figures, independent research based on open source data and intelligence reports indicate that hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine, with even greater numbers wounded. This dwarfs the losses suffered in all the wars waged by the Kremlin since World War II.

In order to replenish the depleted ranks of his army, Putin has been forced to offer ever-larger bounties to new recruits. Nevertheless, the catastrophic casualty rate in Ukraine means that even the present steady flow of Russian volunteers may not be enough to sustain the invasion. In an indication of Moscow’s mounting manpower challenges, Putin brokered a deal with Pyongyang last year that saw more than ten thousand North Korean soldiers deployed to fight alongside the Russian army.

Putin is also visibly in struggling in the wider geopolitical arena. With the vast majority of Russia’s military resources already committed to the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has found itself unable to project strength elsewhere. Russia could do nothing when the simmering war between Azerbaijan and Armenia flared up in 2023, and has since been largely excluded from the peace process between the two countries, leaving centuries of Russian imperial influence in doubt. Similarly, when the regime of Kremlin client Bashar al-Assad was under threat in late 2024, Moscow was unable to intervene to save the Syrian dictator. Iranian officials encountered the same toothless response more recently when they appealed to their Russian allies for help during Israel’s brief air war against the country.

As Russia’s international influence declines, Putin is facing growing economic woes on the home front. These problems are being compounded by an escalating Ukrainian bombing campaign targeting the Russian oil and gas industry. Since the beginning of August, Ukraine has launched dozens of airstrikes against Russian refineries, pipelines, pumping stations, and ports. This Ukrainian aerial offensive has dealt the biggest blow to the Russian economy since the start of the war, Reuters reports, with refining capacity significantly curtailed and energy exports down. Crucially, Ukrainian attacks have sparked a worsening fuel crisis in regions across Russia, with long queues forming at gas stations amid supply breakdowns and record price hikes.

Russia’s inability to defend its economically vital energy industry against Ukrainian long-range drones has highlighted just how overstretched the country’s military currently is. With the army’s limited supply of air defense systems deployed to the front lines in Ukraine or guarding major Russian cities along with the palaces of Putin and his cronies, there is simply not enough spare capacity to protect the vast oil and gas infrastructure that serves as the engine of Putin’s war machine.

This does not bode well for the Kremlin. Ukraine is clearly intent on methodically destroying Russia’s energy industry and is developing its own domestically produced cruise missiles to do so. If these weapons become more readily available in the coming months as anticipated, Kyiv’s capacity to strike targets deep inside Russia will be drastically enhanced.

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The unfavorable current military and economic outlook helps to explain why Trump chose to brand Russia a “paper tiger.” The jibe seems to have struck a nerve among Russians, many of whom are no doubt already beginning to feel uneasy about the worsening domestic situation and their army’s lack of progress in Ukraine. Pro-war bloggers and Kremlin pundits lined up to attack Trump and ridicule his “paper tiger” assertion, while Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov felt obliged to directly address the insult. “Russia is by no means a tiger. Russia is traditionally seen as a bear. There is no such thing as paper bears. Russia is a real bear,” he somewhat bizarrely insisted during a radio interview.

Putin has so far remained silent but is likely to be seething. The Kremlin dictator is well known for his gangster-like obsession with respect, and has made no secret of his bitter resentment over Russia’s humiliating loss of superpower status following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin was said to have been deeply offended when US President Barack Obama dismissed Russia as a mere “regional power” in 2014 during the initial stages of Moscow’s attack on Ukraine. He will now also be haunted by Trump’s “paper tiger” taunt, which strikes at the very heart of his imperial insecurities.

The invasion of Ukraine was conceived by Putin as a decisive step to reverse the injustice of the Soviet breakup and revive the Russian Empire. He had hoped for a rapid victory that would transform the wider geopolitical landscape and return Russia to its rightful place among the world’s great powers. Instead, the war has ruthlessly exposed the limitations of the Russian military.

Today, Putin’s armies remain bogged down in brutal fighting for control over villages that lie within walking distance of the original front lines when Russia’s invasion first began more than three and a half years ago. At sea, Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports has been broken, with the bulk of Putin’s fleet forced to retreat from Crimea. Despite possessing one of the world’s largest air forces, Russia has been unable to secure air superiority in Ukraine and cannot even prevent the Ukrainians from striking targets deep inside the Russian Federation itself.

In light of this poor performance, it is hardly surprising that Russia’s military reputation has taken such a battering since 2022. Putin still possesses a vast and powerful war machine that is capable of inflicting untold harm and misery, but few would now classify Russia as a global superpower. Trump’s “paper tiger” barb was meant as an insult, but it may be closer to the truth that Putin’s pretensions to great power status.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Russia’s extremely modest recent gains have come at a terrible price. While the Kremlin does not release information about its war dead, conservative estimates of Russian casualties based on open source data suggest catastrophic losses during the summer months numbering tens of thousands. As German journalist and BILD correspondent Julian Röpcke has noted, any sober assessment of Russia’s summer offensive must conclude that it has been a “debacle.”

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The failure of Putin’s summer offensive should now help to debunk the persistent myth of inevitable Russian victory. For far too long, international perceptions of the war in Ukraine have been distorted by exaggerated notions of Russia’s military might. Perhaps most notoriously, this has led US President Donald Trump to criticize Ukraine for daring to defend itself against a far larger aggressor, while suggesting that Russia is somehow uniquely accustomed to waging and winning wars.

In reality, Russian history has been shaped to a significant degree by military defeats, including a long list of lost wars in the past few centuries alone. Russia suffered a comprehensive defeat against an Anglo-French coalition in the Crimean War of the 1850s. This was followed by a humiliating loss to Japan in 1905, which sparked a revolution. Russia then contrived to lose World War I, despite starting the war on what would eventually be the winning side. This led to the downfall of the Czarist Russian Empire.

In the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks lost the 1920 Polish-Soviet War. The Soviet era would also end in defeat, with Russia retreating from Afghanistan in 1988 before losing the Cold War itself. Following the collapse of the USSR, post-Soviet Russia went on to lose the First Chechen War in the mid 1990s.

Despite this very mixed military record, modern Russia has managed to convince much of the outside world that it remains an unstoppable superpower. Putin has embraced the militarism of the Soviet era and brought it into the digital age, combining traditional elements such as annual parades and Hollywood-style blockbusters with viral social media messaging and rampant disinformation campaigns designed to cultivate an image of overwhelming strength.

Putin’s militaristic myth-making has played an important role in shaping the international response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ever since the outbreak of hostilities in February 2022, Western leaders have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Putin’s projections of power and his liberal use of nuclear blackmail. Rather than providing Ukraine with everything it needs to secure victory, the West has consistently hesitated while citing fear of escalation. This timid approach has merely served to embolden Moscow and prolong the war.

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With little actual progress to report on the battlefield, the Kremlin is now reportedly scrambling to inflate its gains in an apparent bid to overawe Western policymakers and persuade them that their continued backing of the Ukrainian war effort is futile. “The Kremlin is trying to convince the West that Russia will inevitably achieve its war goals on the battlefield, such that Ukraine should concede to Russian demands and the West should therefore cease its support of Ukraine,” the US-based Institute for the Study of War noted on August 30.

The facts on the ground tell a different story. While Putin boasts of relentless advances and irresistible battlefield momentum, his army is in many instances still fighting over villages located within walking distance of Russia’s original positions at the start of the full-scale invasion more than three and a half years ago. Over the past one thousand days, Russia has occupied around one percent of Ukraine, while failing to capture a single Ukrainian regional capital. Indeed, the largest city occupied by Russian forces during the whole war remains Rostov in Russia itself, which was briefly seized in June 2023 during the short-lived Wagner mutiny.

Putin’s ability to intimidate Western leaders is his greatest single achievement in a war that has seen his army perform far below expectations. The success of his saber-rattling is a triumph of style over substance that conveniently ignores unfavorable battlefield realities while relying heavily on the West’s own obvious reluctance to confront the Kremlin. As evidence of the Russian army’s limitations continues to mount, this reluctance looks harder and harder to justify.

It would be extremely foolish to underestimate the threat posed by Putin’s war machine, of course. The Russian army dwarfs anything in Europe and is backed by vast quantities of drones, missiles, and air power, along with the kind of ruthless political will that is almost entirely absent in most European capitals. But at the same time, it is vital to recognize that Russian victory in Ukraine is anything but inevitable.

The costly failure of Russia’s recent summer offensive is a clear signal that Putin’s invasion is not going according to plan. For now, the Kremlin dictator shows no sign of compromising and still thinks he can bluff his way to victory, but his army is obviously far more vulnerable that he would like us to believe. If the Ukrainians receive the necessary backing from their allies, recent evidence suggests that they are more than capable of turning the military tide in their favor and forcing Putin to the negotiating table.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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Gifting Russia large swathes of unconquered territory that thousands of Ukrainians have died defending would be an extremely bitter pill for the Ukrainian population to swallow, to put it mildly. It would also be widely seen as rewarding Russia for launching the largest European war since World War II. This would legitimize Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine and set the stage for further Russian aggression.

Even if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was personally inclined to appease Putin, he does not constitutionally have the authority to cede land. Instead, changes to Ukraine’s borders must be agreed via a national referendum. Any indication that Zelenskyy favored accepting Putin’s territorial demands would likely provoke strong domestic opposition. This would potentially destabilize Ukraine, creating a range of opportunities for Russia to exploit. A weakened and divided Ukraine would be far more vulnerable on the battlefield and in the diplomatic arena.

Alternatively, if Zelenskyy maintains his current position and continues to rule out Putin’s Donbas land grab, the Kremlin will likely use this rejection to poison the Ukrainian leader’s relations with US President Donald Trump by portraying Ukraine as the main obstacle to peace. Putin would no doubt welcome the opportunity to drive a wedge between Kyiv and Washington as Moscow seeks to isolate Ukraine and reduce international support for the Ukrainian war effort.

Militarily, the surrender of the northern Donetsk region would place large parts of eastern Ukraine at risk of being overrun by the advancing Russians. The region currently serves as a bastion against Russia’s invasion. While there is no guarantee that fortified areas will be able to hold out indefinitely against Russian attacks, Putin would almost certainly be forced to sacrifice huge numbers of troops before achieving his goal. In this sense, the Donbas fortress belt is one of Ukraine’s trump cards in its war of attrition against Russia.

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Over the past eleven years, Ukraine has constructed a range of defensive fortifications in the northern Donetsk region centered around the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. The area has served as a logistical hub for the Ukrainian war effort and has been a focus of efforts to develop defense in depth. If Ukraine retreats from this stronghold, Russia would be able to secure a vital staging post for further advances while avoiding hundreds of thousands of casualties. The Ukrainian military would then be forced to hastily construct new fortifications in significantly less favorable terrain.

With current military technologies favoring defensive operations, Ukraine’s fortress belt in the northern Donetsk region represents a formidable obstacle for Putin’s invading army. The ubiquity of drones above the battlefield makes large-scale mechanized breakthroughs extremely challenging to accomplish, leaving Russia to rely on small groups of infantry to infiltrate Ukrainian forward positions. This approach can be successful against thinly defended and hastily constructed defensive positions, but is unlikely to prove effective against the most heavily fortified sector of the Ukrainian front lines.

Ukrainians recognize the need for concessions, with a majority acknowledging that areas of the country currently occupied by Russia will likely remain under Kremlin control as part of any peace settlement. Crucially, however, almost nobody in Ukraine believes that handing over additional unconquered territory in the Donbas would satisfy Putin’s imperial ambitions or remove the threat of future Russian invasions. On the contrary, most Ukrainians agree that this would only encourage the Kremlin and embolden Putin to go further. He would be able to do so from a position of strength, having secured Ukraine’s fortress belt without the prolonged fighting that has proved necessary in order to secure far smaller territorial gains elsewhere in eastern Ukraine.

From both a military and political perspective, it would make little sense for Ukraine to accept Russia’s territorial demands and voluntarily surrender the northern Donetsk region as part of a peace deal. As long as Kyiv continues to control the Donbas fortress belt, there is a good chance that the Ukrainian military can turn the entire region into a graveyard for Putin’s invading army. Meanwhile, a withdrawal would leave large parts of Ukraine dangerously undefended and dramatically undermine faith in the country’s leadership.

Even if Putin concentrates his best military units in a bid to complete the conquest of the Donbas region, he would almost certainly be forced to pay a very high price for any significant advances. Indeed, the Russian army may become bogged down for years in bitter fighting that would dwarf earlier battles of attrition and could conceivably change the entire course of the war. This is exactly why Putin is pushing for Ukraine to surrender the region without a fight, and helps explain why Ukraine is reluctant to do so.

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Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 led directly to the introduction of martial law in Ukraine, making it impossible for the country to hold scheduled presidential elections in 2024. The terms of martial law and the Ukrainian Election Code both explicitly prohibit any elections in the current wartime conditions.

A nationwide vote under bombardment is neither legal nor feasible. Millions of Ukrainians are currently displaced within Ukraine or abroad. Voter lists cannot be updated reliably. Soldiers serving in the combat zone and Ukrainian civilians who at constant risk of airstrikes cannot safely cast ballots. A wartime election would disenfranchise millions and jeopardize the legitimacy of the Ukrainian authorities rather than safeguarding it.

This reality is widely accepted. Ukrainian political parties, civil society, and the public agree that elections should only resume when they can be free, fair, inclusive, and safe. Polling shows that most Ukrainians oppose elections during wartime. International partners echo this consensus and reject suggestions that Zelenskyy lacks legitimacy. The European Commission has affirmed that it has “no doubts the president of Ukraine is Volodymyr Zelenskyy.”

Ukraine’s Constitution directly addresses this situation. Article 103 sets a five-year presidential term, but Article 108 clarifies that the president remains in office “until the assumption of office by the newly elected president.” Authority does not simply expire on a calendar date. Instead, it continues until a successor is duly sworn in.

Precedent supports this reading. No Ukrainian president has ever served exactly five years, with terms varying according to election and inauguration schedules. As one drafter of the 1996 Ukrainian Constitution explained in The Economist, “Zelenskyy continues in power for as long as martial law applies. There is no political or legal crisis. Full stop.”

Crucially, checks and balances remain. Every extension of martial law in Ukraine requires parliamentary approval, providing Ukrainian lawmakers with ample opportunity to raise objections. Ukraine’s Constitutional Court can also review the legality of presidential continuity if petitioned by members of parliament, the Supreme Court, or the Ombudsman. In other words, Zelenskyy’s current authority is rooted not in personal decree but in a functioning democratic system.

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Why does the Kremlin keep pushing this line? By branding Zelenskyy “unconstitutional,” Russia hopes to derail any future peace process and weaken Western unity. Unfortunately for Moscow, there are clear signs that this strategy is failing. Ukrainians overwhelmingly recognize Zelenskyy as their lawful president, while international leaders consistently affirm his legitimacy.

Far from undermining Kyiv, the Kremlin’s narrative underscores its desperation and highlights Moscow’s obvious reluctance to engage in meaningful peace talks. This approach also inadvertently draws attention to the serious legitimacy issues around Russia’s own elections, which routinely fall well short of recognized international standards.

International norms support Ukraine’s position on wartime elections. The Council of Europe has affirmed that postponing elections in exceptional situations, such as a state of war, may be necessary to preserve constitutional order and allow citizens to express their will in a safe context. History also offers precedent, with Britain postponing scheduled parliamentary elections during both world wars.

Ukraine is currently following the same logic. By upholding constitutional continuity, maintaining democratic safeguards, and preparing for the moment when elections can be held freely, the Ukrainian government is strengthening rather than weakening its legitimacy.

Zelenskyy remains president not despite the Ukrainian Constitution, but because it guarantees continuity in extraordinary times. And when peace comes, Ukraine will be ready to prove once again at the ballot box that its democracy endures. This is in stark contrast to Russia, where an illegitimate ruler has remained in office for decades due to unconstitutional charades and manipulated elections.

Serhii Savelii is an independent Ukrainian election analyst.

Putin’s hybrid war against Europe continues to escalate

Maksym Beznosiuk — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 23:11:52 +0000

While international attention focuses on faltering US-led efforts to broker a peace deal and end the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin’s broader hybrid war against Europe continues to escalate. This campaign of unconventional warfare has been gaining pace for a number of years and poses significant security challenges that require greater coordination among European governments.

The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, highlighted the scale of the danger in a July statement condemning what she called “Russia’s persistent hybrid campaigns” against EU member states. According to Kallas, the list of Russian hybrid warfare activities in Europe includes cyber attacks, sabotage, disruption of critical infrastructure, physical attacks, information manipulation and interference, and other covert or coercive actions.

The Putin regime has spent more than a decade refining its hybrid warfare playbook. Many of the tactics currently being utilized against EU countries were first developed during the initial stage of Russia’s war in Ukraine, beginning in 2014. This allowed the Kremlin to maintain a degree of plausible deniability while actively working to destabilize and weaken the Ukrainian state from within. Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin’s hybrid war against Europe has also entered a new and more intensive phase.

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European intelligence officials told the Associated Press in July that the risk of serious injury or death is rising across Europe amid claims that Russia is recruiting untrained saboteurs via the internet to set fires near homes and businesses, plant explosives, and build bombs. Russia has reportedly been forced to rely increasingly on amateurs as hundreds of Moscow’s own spies have been expelled from European countries in recent years amid growing tensions between Russia and the West.

Russia currently stands accused of committing a variety of increasingly ambitious acts of aggression inside the European Union. In Poland, a massive fire that destroyed over 1,400 shops and service outlets in a Warsaw shopping center has been linked to Russian intelligence, prompting the closure of Russia’s Krakow consulate in May 2025.

Meanwhile, in a further example of the trend to recruit saboteurs via social media, a UK court convicted three men in July over their role in a Kremlin-linked arson attack on a London warehouse storing aid and equipment bound for Ukraine. During the trial, the defendants confirmed that the warehouse was just one of multiple targets identified by their handlers.

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Over the past year, the Baltic Sea has become a key focus for the Kremlin’s hybrid offensive, with Moscow accused of using its shadow fleet of vessels to conduct sabotage operations targeting undersea cables. In August, the Finnish authorities charged the captain of a tanker believed to be part of Russia’s shadow fleet with dragging an anchor along the Gulf of Finland seabed and cutting five undersea cables, causing tens of millions of euros in damage.

In addition to undersea operations, Moscow is alleged to have engaged in GPS jamming in the Baltic region as part of efforts to disrupt civil aviation. In May 2025, officials from Latvia’s Defense Intelligence and Security Service issued a report stating that the Kremlin may be using agents posing as tourists to spy and conduct sabotage operations in the Baltic and across Europe. “The Ukrainian experience shows that Russian special services are able to adapt,” the report warned. Neighboring Lithuania has also accused Russia of being behind a number of recent arson attacks.

Russia favors hybrid warfare as this allows the Kremlin to destabilize Europe and undermine support for Ukraine without crossing the threshold and provoking a military response. Europe’s reaction to Putin’s hybrid war tactics has also been hampered by a lack of coordination among target countries. While NATO’s Joint Intelligence and Security Division and the EU’s East StratCom task force play valuable roles in efforts to monitor potential threats and investigate Russian involvement, most countermeasures remain fragmented.

Looking ahead, Russia’s escalating hybrid war against Europe demands a more integrated and agile response. Suspected examples of hybrid aggression should not be viewed in isolation. Instead, they should be treated as part of a broader Kremlin campaign. In order to respond effectively, European countries must work together to fund and develop new security structures capable of both identifying and addressing Russian hybrid operations effectively.

As European countries race to rearm in order to counter the military threat posed by a resurgent and expansionist Russia, they must also acknowledge that hybrid hostilities with the Kremlin are already underway. Many European governments are well aware of this fact, but the absence of a more coherent collective response currently leaves all of Europe at a distinct disadvantage.

Maksym Beznosiuk is a strategic policy specialist whose work focuses on Russia’s evolving military and hybrid strategy, EU-Ukraine cooperation, and Ukraine’s reconstruction.

A Ukraine without Ukrainians: Putin is erasing Europe’s largest nation

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 01:09:58 +0000

When Ukrainian schoolchildren in Russian-occupied regions of the country return to the classroom following the summer holidays, they will no longer be able to receive even minimal instruction in their country’s national language. This blanket ban on Ukrainian language education is the latest stage in a Kremlin campaign to extinguish all traces of Ukrainian identity as Vladimir Putin pursues an extreme form of eliminationist imperialism in the heart of twenty-first century Europe.

According to a draft directive published recently by the Russian Education Ministry, the study of Ukrainian is to be removed from the school curriculum throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine beginning in September 2025. The directive cites “changes in the geopolitical situation in the world” as justification for the decision.

In reality, the official ban on Ukrainian language studies is a formality confirming processes that have been well underway ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, and for far longer in areas of Ukraine occupied by Moscow following the initial onset of Russian aggression in 2014. The removal of the Ukrainian language from Ukrainian classrooms has been accompanied by the introduction of a new Kremlin-friendly curriculum that glorifies the ongoing Russian invasion while denying Ukraine’s right to exist and demonizing Ukrainians as Nazis. Parents who resist risk losing custody of their children.

This campaign of classroom indoctrination is only one aspect of the Kremlin’s comprehensive Russification policies in occupied Ukraine. Since February 2022, the Russian authorities have conducted mass arrests of anyone deemed a potential threat to the occupation, with thousands of Ukrainian officials, activists, community leaders, veterans, and patriots disappearing into a vast network of prisons. A recent UN probe has classified these large-scale detentions as a crime against humanity.

Ukrainian civilians still living in occupied Ukraine are being forced to accept Russian citizenship or lose access to essential services such as pensions and healthcare, along with the ability to run a business or hold a bank account. Beginning in September, new legislation will make it possible for the authorities to expel anyone without Russian citizenship from their own homes and deport them.

Meanwhile, public symbols of Ukrainian statehood, heritage, and culture are being methodically removed and replaced by the trappings of an imported Russian imperial identity. Likewise, the demographic makeup of the occupied Ukrainian regions is being systematically transformed by Kremlin programs that aim to attract migrants from across the Russian Federation.

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The hard line Russification policies currently being implemented in the 20 percent of Ukraine under Russian occupation offer a chilling blueprint for the rest of the country if the invasion succeeds. Indeed, it is now be abundantly clear that Putin’s ultimate objective is a Ukraine without Ukrainians.

This should come as no surprise. For years, Putin has insisted Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”), and has accused Ukraine of being an illegitimate state occupying historically Russian lands. On the eve of the full-scale invasion, he began referring ominously to Ukraine as an “anti-Russia,” while describing the country as an “inalienable” part of Russia’s own history, culture, and spiritual space. More recently, he underlined his contempt for Ukrainian independence by declaring: “All of Ukraine is ours.”

Putin’s Ukraine obsession has been one of the dominant themes of his entire reign. This reflects the Kremlin dictator’s desire to reverse the 1991 Soviet collapse and his fear that the consolidation of Ukrainian statehood could spark the next stage in a Russian imperial retreat that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

For Putin and millions of his fellow Russians, the emergence of an independent Ukraine is a bitterly resented reminder of their own country’s post-Soviet humiliation, while Ukrainian society’s efforts to embrace a democratic European identity offer alarming echoes of the pro-democracy movements that led to the fall of the USSR. For the past two decades, Putin’s top priority has been making sure Ukraine’s turn away from authoritarianism does not serve as a catalyst for similar democratization demands inside Russia itself.

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During the early years of his reign, Putin attempted to return Ukraine to Moscow’s orbit via a combination of political interference, economic leverage, and soft power tools including the Kremlin-controlled Russian media and the Russian Orthodox Church. When this strategy failed, he opted to launch the limited military intervention of 2014, which began with the seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

Once it became apparent that even the partial occupation of Ukraine would not derail the country’s Euro-Atlantic integration, Putin appears to have concluded that he could no longer take the risk of allowing an independent Ukraine to exist at all. This set the stage for the full-scale invasion of 2022 and laid the ideological foundations for the Kremlin’s current efforts to extinguish Ukrainian national identity entirely.

Unless Putin is stopped, there can be no serious doubt that millions more Ukrainians will be robbed of their identity and subjected to Putin’s ruthless brand of Russian imperial indoctrination. During recent bilateral peace talks in Istanbul, Kremlin officials underlined their determination to secure Kyiv’s complete capitulation. Moscow’s terms include the revival of Russian dominance over every aspect of Ukrainian public life and the dramatic reduction of the Ukrainian military. It does not take much imagination to anticipate exactly what kind of treatment Russia has in mind for the civilian population if Ukraine compiles with these demands and is left defenseless.

Putin’s calculated campaign to erase the identity of the largest country situated wholly in Europe makes a complete mockery of efforts to portray the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a conventional armed conflict with limited goals. This is no mere border dispute or rational response to legitimate Russian security concerns; it is a classic war of colonial conquest with the explicit intention of destroying Ukraine as a state and as a nation.

If it is allowed to continue, the magnitude of this crime will dwarf anything seen in Europe since World War II. This will fuel Putin’s sense of impunity and whet his imperial appetite, creating the conditions for further previously unthinkable acts of international aggression. It will then only be a matter of time before other “historically Russian” nations are subjected to the horrors currently being inflicted on Ukraine.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Any settlement based on Trump’s proposals would have been easy to sell as a Russian success story. Indeed, many would have regarded it as an unprecedented triumph for the Kremlin. Despite these positive optics, Putin has remained unmoved. While the Russian ruler has consistently voiced his theoretical support for America’s efforts to end the war, he has in practice derailed any hope of meaningful progress toward peace by engaging in endless stalling tactics and insisting on maximalist demands that would mean the effective end of Ukrainian statehood.

This uncompromising Russian stance has placed Trump in an increasingly awkward position. After months of talking up the prospects of peace, he has now been forced to acknowledge that Putin has no intention of ending the war. This has set the stage for the recent change of tone from the White House, which has led to the renewal of US arms deliveries to Ukraine along with this week’s fresh ultimatum.

There is now much speculation over what Trump will do if, as expected, Putin ignores the latest US deadline and continues his invasion. There is also considerable debate over the potential implications of the US decision to provide Ukraine with weapons via Europe, with many questioning whether this military support will be on a sufficient scale to impact the future course of the war.

The real question, however, is why Putin chose to reject America’s generous peace terms. After all, Trump was offering his Kremlin counterpart an honorable exit from an enormously costly war that has undermined Russia’s global standing and has often threatened to spiral completely out of control. Why did Putin refuse to accept victory in Ukraine?

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Putin’s most immediate reason for refusing to end the war in Ukraine is because he thinks he is winning. The Russian army is advancing at various points along the front lines, while Ukraine’s military is being methodically worn down. Although progress is proving exceptionally slow, there is no question that Putin currently holds the battlefield initiative and can reasonably expect to prevail in a war of attrition against a far smaller opponent.

Putin has also been encouraged by the limitations of international support for Ukraine. While Kyiv’s partners have provided substantial military and financial backing, this aid has consistently been subject to delays or restrictions due to domestic political considerations and widespread Western fears of possible Russian escalation. With his army seizing more territory and his opponents so easily intimidated, it not difficult to understand why the Russian leader might prefer to continue his invasion while awaiting what he sees as the inevitable Ukrainian collapse.

On the domestic front, Putin has a number of further practical reasons for preferring the harsh realities of war to the unpredictability of peace. Since 2022, he has succeeded in moving the Russian economy onto a war footing, with massive hikes in military spending and payouts to soldiers helping to offset the damage caused by international sanctions. Russian factories now work around the clock and are pumping out more armaments that all NATO member countries combined.

As a result of this shift to a wartime economy, millions of ordinary Russian families are far wealthier today than in 2022. At the same time, the results are highly uneven: Flooding the Russian economy with state subsidies has spiked inflation and forced the Kremlin to sharply raise interest rates, hurting many of the non-military companies that make up much of the real Russian economy.

Beyond the defense sector, Russian oil and gas exports have been redirected to new markets across the Global South. Meanwhile, Western companies that exited Russia in response to the war have been replaced by local alternatives, creating extensive enrichment opportunities for many within Putin’s inner circle. A ceasefire would place this entire economic model in jeopardy, with potentially destabilizing consequences for the country as a whole.

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine has produced similar dividends for the Putin regime politically. Since 2022, the Kremlin has exploited wartime conditions to complete Russia’s long post-Soviet journey from flawed democracy to dictatorship. Virtually all potential opponents of the regime are now exiled, jailed, or dead. The last vestiges of an independent media have been extinguished, while civil liberties have been further curtailed. There is no meaningful anti-war movement in today’s Russia. Nor is there any serious doubt that Putin will remain in power until the end of his current term in 2036, if he lives that long.

In the event of a peace deal, the Kremlin would also face the challenge of dealing with hundreds of thousands of demobilized Russian soldiers brutalized by the savagery of the war in Ukraine. Crucially, these men have grown accustomed to exceptionally large salaries and bonus payments that dwarf anything they can expect to receive if they head back to their provincial homes across Russia. The return of so many military veterans to civilian life would have potentially explosive consequences for Russian society, with significant numbers likely to engage in violent crime or other forms of destructive behavior. Putin is acutely aware that Red Army soldiers returning from the Soviet war in Afghanistan played a key role in the spiraling banditry of the 1990s. He will be in no hurry to risk a repeat.

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Putin’s refusal to accept Trump’s favorable peace terms is in part explained by his heightened expectations of victory and his sense of trepidation over the unpredictable implications of any negotiated deal to end hostilities. The decisive factor fueling Putin’s determination to continue the war, however, is his conviction that Ukrainian statehood poses an existential threat to Russia and must be extinguished altogether. This has always been the primary motive behind the invasion and reflects deep-rooted fears shared by Putin and other Kremlin leaders over the potential breakup of the Russian Federation.

Putin views Ukraine as an indivisible part of Russia’s historical heartlands and regards the modern Ukrainian state’s separation from Russia as a “geopolitical catastrophe” that symbolizes the injustice of the Soviet collapse. Like many from his generation, Putin is haunted by the grassroots pro-democracy campaigns and independence movements that fueled the fall of the USSR. This has helped to convince him that the consolidation of an independent and democratic Ukraine could spark the next stage in a Russian imperial retreat that began with the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.

Putin’s obsession with Ukraine as a potential catalyst for Russian imperial collapse has been increasingly evident throughout his reign. For much of the past two decades, he has insisted that Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”). In more recent years, he began attacking Ukraine more explicitly as an artificial “anti-Russia” that could no longer be tolerated. On the eve of the full-scale invasion, Putin took the highly unusual step of publishing an entire 5000-word essay detailing his rejection of Ukraine’s right to exist.

The actions of the Russian army in Ukraine have mirrored this genocidal rhetoric. In Ukrainian regions currently under Russian occupation, thousands of community leaders and patriots have been detained and dispatched into a vast network of prison camps. Those who remain are being forced to accept Russian passports and subjected to ruthless Russification, with all traces of Ukrainian statehood, culture, and history systematically erased.

The Kremlin’s carefully coordinated campaign to eradicate Ukrainian national identity reveals the central truth behind Russia’s invasion. The war that Putin first unleashed in 2014 and escalated in 2022 aims to destroy Ukraine as a state and as a nation. This helps to explain why Putin has shown such little interest in the terms offered by Trump. While the US proposal may have appeared attractive to outsiders, Putin knows he cannot risk a settlement that stops short of Ukraine’s complete capitulation. He is painfully aware that any peace deal guaranteeing Ukraine’s continued existence as an independent state would represent an historic Russian defeat. In other words, if Ukraine survives, Russia loses.

If Trump and other leaders wish to change the calculus in the Kremlin and convince Putin to end the war, they must learn the lessons of the past six months. Clearly, it is essential to transform the military realities on the ground and force Putin to question his current confidence in Russian victory. This means providing Ukraine with the weapons to defend its cities from bombardment, regain the initiative on the battlefield, and bring the war home to Russia. The West has the tools to do so. All that is missing is the requisite political will. Anything less will prolong the war and embolden Putin to escalate further.

Additional sanctions are also evidently required in order to upset Russia’s robust wartime economy and persuade Putin that continuing the invasion will eventually bankrupt his country. This will require far tougher measures against Russia’s energy exports, along with secondary sanctions targeting countries involved in helping Moscow bypass present measures. In parallel, the numerous European nations that continue to trade with the Kremlin should be unambiguously informed that this will no longer be tolerated.

Most of all, Western leaders must force Putin to abandon his imperial ambitions and finally accept the irreversible historical reality of an independent Ukraine. This will require far greater resolve than anything the West has demonstrated since 2022, but it is the only way to secure a sustainable peace.

Putin’s anti-Ukrainian crusade has come to define his entire reign, reflecting his burning ambition to reverse the verdict of 1991 and revive the Russian Empire. He has gambled everything on his ability to extinguish Ukrainian independence, and is prepared to go to almost any lengths in pursuit of this criminal goal. From Putin’s perspective, therefore, the stakes could hardly be higher and the benefits of continuing the war currently far outweigh the costs. This will only change if he finds himself confronted with the threat of military defeat in Ukraine and the very real prospect of a new Russian national collapse.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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Recent reports of growing Chinese support for the Russian war effort are fuelling renewed speculation over what Beijing is hoping to achieve in Ukraine. While Chinese officials reject accusations that their country is arming Russia as “groundless” and insist that their focus remains on promoting peace talks, comments attributed to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in early July offer a window into Beijing’s priorities. According to EU officials, China’s top diplomat told his European counterpart, Kaja Kallas, that Beijing is not willing to accept a Russian defeat in Ukraine as this could allow the United States to turn its full attention to China.

Wang Yi’s widely reported statement certainly fits with Beijing’s official stance toward the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Although China claims to want peace, it has consistently demonstrated its diplomatic and economic support for Moscow amid deepening ties with the Kremlin. On the eve of the invasion, China and Russia declared a “no limits” partnership. China’s President Xi Jinping has since met with his Russian counterpart on multiple occasions to reaffirm this partnership. Chinese officials have also frequently echoed Russian justifications for the invasion.

Economic ties between the two countries have strengthened significantly since 2022 amid a rupture in Russian business links with the West. Bilateral trade has soared to record highs, with China serving as a key alternative destination for Russian energy exports while also allegedly proving instrumental in helping Moscow bypass Western sanctions. According to a May 2025 report by the German Foreign Ministry, China is believed to be responsible for around 80 percent of Russian sanctions avoidance.

This growing partnership makes perfect sense. China and Russia share a clear geopolitical alignment in opposition to the current US-led world order, with both Xi and Putin openly speaking about the need for a new multipolar era in international relations. Russia also appears to have had considerable success in convincing China that the invasion of Ukraine is a key step toward achieving this goal. Likewise, Beijing has good reason to fear a Russian defeat in Ukraine, which would significantly strengthen the West while freeing up the United States to turn its attention to Asia.

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It is clear that China is now Russia’s most important international partner, but there are some indications of distrust between the two authoritarian allies. Many in Moscow are wary of Russia’s growing dependence on Beijing amid suspicions regarding China’s long-term ambitions toward their country. According to a New York Times report published in June 2025, some elements within Russia’s extensive intelligence community openly refer to the Chinese as “the enemy” and believe efforts are already underway to lay the groundwork for future claims to Russian territory.

In China, meanwhile, there is likely to be a degree of uneasiness about the rapidly deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea. Since 2022, Pyongyang has emerged as a key supplier of artillery shells, ballistic missiles, and other munitions to the Russian army. More recently, North Korea has begun providing thousands of combat troops for Russia’s war against Ukraine, along with large numbers of workers for military-related construction and factory roles.

Growing cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang could undermine Beijing’s position by diluting China’s ability to influence the Kremlin. At the same time, the large amounts of money and increased access to advanced Russian military technologies that North Korea is receiving in return for its support could also transform the delicate geopolitical balance in East Asia.

There is little reason to doubt recent EU claims that China is committed to preventing a Russian defeat in Ukraine. However, the much-hyped partnership between Moscow and Beijing may be more marriage of convenience than ideological alliance. Both sides share a common interest in weakening the West, but they might not be as trusting of each other as their public statements would suggest.

Some in Russia are now openly alarmed by their country’s growing reliance on China and have little faith in Beijing’s good intentions. China almost certainly does not want Russia to lose the war in Ukraine, but Beijing is unlikely to welcome the idea of an historic Russian victory that would strengthen Moscow and weaken the current dominant Chinese position during future negotiations with the Kremlin. Instead, China’s preference may be for the indefinite continuation of a war that increases its leverage over Russia while keeping the West fully occupied and unable to turn its attention to Asia.

It is no secret that Ukraine’s detractors are always watching for any excuse to argue that Ukraine is hopelessly corrupt, terminally divided, or otherwise undeserving of further support. Their arguments are all the more persuasive when they are able to quote pro-Ukrainian voices. Why give them such gifts?

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The recent debate over controversial legislation limiting the independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies illustrates the challenges of addressing Ukrainian domestic politics in a responsible manner during wartime. While concerns over the need for transparency and democratic integrity are entirely legitimate, not everyone has rushed to judgment. This more cautious approach should not be confused with passive acceptance. On the contrary, sometimes being a true partner means seeking clarity and offering solutions rather than shouting from the sidelines.

Too often, diaspora voices and international observers fall into the trap of reacting to sensational headlines without digging deeper. This kind of armchair criticism rarely helps Ukraine. Instead, the country needs allies who understand that mistakes will happen in wartime, while also acknowledging that even troubling developments do not justify withdrawing support entirely. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard members of the Ukrainian diaspora use corruption as an excuse to justify their lack of support for Ukraine.

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It also helps to maintain a sense of proportion. With the largest European invasion since World War II now in its fourth year, the real scandal that should be occupying the attention of Ukraine’s supporters is the sluggish pace of international aid. According to the Kiel Institute, European countries need only allocate 0.21 percent of GDP to the Ukrainian war effort in order to replace military support from the United States. While countries like Estonia, Denmark, and Lithuania are easily surpassing this target, wealthier European nations like Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, and Belgium continue to fall short.

Ukraine cannot hope to prevail against a military superpower like Russia without sufficient backing from the country’s allies. Wherever they are located, Kyiv’s supporters and members of the Ukrainian diaspora should be laser-focused on convincing their respective governments to meet or exceed the 0.21 percent threshold. This could prove decisive in determining whether Ukraine survives as an independent state.

The vast majority of Ukraine’s friends and allies are committed to a shared vision of the country’s future as a European democracy. They recognize that this means upholding basic human rights and core democratic principles, including the need to rigorously combat corruption and hold power to account. At the same time, it should be abundantly clear to anyone who cares about Ukraine that the country’s fight for survival is the current priority.

Ukraine needs unity. Even when the country’s supporters bitterly disagree, it is important to remember exactly what is at stake. We will hopefully have decades to continue the debate over building a better Ukraine. However, if Russia is not stopped, there may be no Ukraine at all.

Pavlo Grod is President of the Ukrainian World Congress.

This joint report from OpenMinds and the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) analyzes the activity of a network of 3,634 automated accounts that posted pro-Russian comments on Telegram channels between January 2024 and April 2025 targeting Ukrainian populations inside Russian-occupied territories. These accounts crafted tailored messages to target the occupied territories, differentiating their content from that aimed at other audiences across Russia and Ukraine.

Our investigation found that automated Telegram comments targeting local audiences in Ukraine fell into three overarching categories: pro-Russian propaganda, anti-Ukrainian propaganda, and abstract anti-war messaging and calls for peaceful coexistence. Individual narratives were often tailored to respond to current events and changes in local conditions, such as power or water outages, but there was also evidence of proactive narratives initiated by the network unrelated to external events.

The bot network used similar messaging when targeting channels based in Russia; however, a significantly larger share of comments targeting the occupied territory channels emphasized positive portrayals of Russian culture and government. Across the sixty-nine narrative themes identified (see appendix), the bot network pushed essentially the same menu of talking points in both Russia-wide and occupied territory channels. What differentiates the content aimed at the occupied territories from that aimed at a wider Russian audience is the proportion of talking points: themes that praised Russian culture, social services, and governance dominated in occupied territory-based channels, accounting for a markedly higher share of content than in Russia-based channels. The pattern points to an effort to cultivate the appearance of local consensus in favor of occupation and Russian administrative control, but not necessarily to create genuine agreement.

Background

A hybrid messaging app and social media platform, Telegram is the preferred communication platform for many in Eastern Europe. Offering more anonymity and less moderation than many other platforms, it allows users to join open channels, create closed groups and chats, and message individuals without the need to create and manage a full-fledged social media profile. While the functionality of the platform is universal, Telegram’s content and how users interact with it vary depending on the country, region, and even individual towns. This is particularly true within Russian-occupied Ukraine, where Telegram channels and user interactions differ from those based in the neighboring regions of Ukraine and Russia.

In examining comments on local Telegram channels associated with Ukrainian cities occupied by Russia, certain features immediately stood out:

Promoted narratives were consistent;
Account usernames and profile pictures were often incomprehensible or inconsistent;
Accounts posted pro-Russian messages but did not engage in actual discussion;
Accounts made frequent posts throughout the day, with messages often making little sense or containing notable stylistic and contextual mistakes, suggesting the employment of artificial intelligence (AI), as many messages contained oddly assembled word combinations and exaggerated or overly formal expressions;
Real-world events triggered an increase in comment frequency.

The comments’ narrative focus on the proliferation of pro-Russian content and the fostering of mistrust in Ukraine and the Ukrainian government is consistent with general Russian propaganda trends in occupied Ukraine. However, this carries additional significance as the occupied regions are cut off from easy access to Ukrainian media and internet, and Telegram is often integral to connecting with neighboring regions. As such, Telegram presents a key forum for promoting messaging favorable to the Kremlin.

Russia has blocked access to Ukrainian satellites in some regions since 2022, including blocking Ukrainian TV channels in the occupied territories, while also forcibly switching local residents to Russian telecom providers, further limiting their access to Ukrainian mobile and internet platforms. The integration into what is sometimes referred to as the “Russian world” information ecosystem prevents these users from reaching Ukrainian-based broadcasts and online platforms without a virtual private network (VPN), complicating the process in particular for older members of the population.

Though the closed nature of the occupied territories’ information space and the dangers faced by locals reaching out to outside contacts make it difficult to truly understand the information landscape and user habits within occupied areas, understanding the mechanisms through which Russian propaganda targets these territories is crucial when considering the possible reintegration of these Ukrainian regions when the war comes to an end. Therefore, it is first necessary to understand why Telegram comments were chosen as part of Russia’s information strategy in that region.

Russian practices of information influence in occupied Ukraine

Russia’s attempts to create a tailored and easily controlled information environment in occupied areas of Ukraine began almost immediately after launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This included launching Telegram channels targeted at specific occupied territories. Some positioned themselves as official or unofficial local news channels, while others were led by influencers and officials on the ground. A 2022 Texty data investigation found that channels were created for every occupied township and community, posing as local news sources but predominantly spreading Russian disinformation narratives and propaganda. While some of these hastily assembled channels were later abandoned, the general Russian strategy of using Telegram to propagandize every district in the occupied territories persisted. The imitation of local news sources is a tactic used to make the channels appear credible and foster trust with audiences, thereby enhancing the potential impact and persuasiveness of pro-Kremlin narratives.

By 2023, the Telegram ecosystem in the occupied territories had grown to over six hundred channels, according to OPORA’s follow-up analysis. That year, the ecosystem expanded to include channels for administrative entities, local organizations, and individuals, as well as for trading goods and services. A key commonality across these channels was the tendency to venerate the pro-Kremlin occupation administration while simultaneously sharing disinformation, misinformation, or general negative messaging about the Ukrainian government. Acting within the larger framework of a controlled information environment, these Telegram channels enabled administrators to tap into additional audiences while disseminating a more cohesive propaganda narrative aimed at uplifting Russia and undermining Ukraine.

In addition to Telegram, regional pro-Kremlin ministries of information operated and curated other social media groups and traditional local news outlets soon after the occupation of eastern and southern Ukraine. These ministries are managed under a centralized system, ultimately receiving high-level tasking from the Kremlin. Russia established centralized media control in the occupied regions through a gradual, non-linear process, which started in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea and the formation of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR). The DPR and LPR were the first occupied territories where control was implemented through information ministries and media holding companies such as Republican Media Holding and Luganmedia. Thus, the creation of information ministries and regional media holdings ensured that local media operated at the Kremlin’s behest.

These new information ministries emerged with varying levels of activity. For example, they were highly active in occupied Kherson but mostly symbolic in occupied Zaporizhzhia. Russian First Deputy Chief Sergey Kirienko oversaw information policy in occupied territories, while Russian propagandist Alexander Malkevich served as a key operator by connecting local collaborators with Russian media resources, recruiting Ukrainian youth for media projects, and rapidly establishing new television channels. Malkevich created three stations in just three months: Tavria TV in Kherson (later relocated to Henichesk), Za! in Melitopol (now part of the media holding ZaMedia), and Mariupol 24.

Why comments?

In the context of wide-ranging attempts to control the information environment, inauthentic comments, including those published by automated means, serve as a means to manipulate the perception of public opinion within the occupied territories, an aspect of computational propaganda referred to as “manufacturing consensus” by Samuel Woolley. A high volume of comments expressing a certain viewpoint can create the impression that it represents the majority opinion in a community, regardless of whether that is actually the case. There is evidence to suggest that online comments can shape users’ opinions during crises, and that the prevalence of a certain view in existing comments can empower users with similar views while discouraging others from expressing contrary views. Inauthentic comments powered by bots thus become an important tool for implementing Russian propaganda.

These are particularly desirable effects for an occupying authority, as it is in its interest to control the local population’s perception of events and encourage support for the occupation. As Russia looked to consolidate its control over occupied Ukrainian territory, automated pro-Russian comments in local chats became a tool for manufacturing consensus in support of Russian control and against any expression of dissent.

While dedicated pro-Russian channels also served these aims, bot commenters have several practical advantages on Telegram, which has no home feed where users can easily encounter content from unfamiliar channels. Rather than having to build their own audience and persona, bot commenters simply insert themselves into existing channels with active participants. Bot commenter accounts are also relatively disposable assets; they are easy to create and replace if detected and deleted by Telegram.

Methodology

To analyze how Russia attempts to control public perception and opinion in occupied Ukraine, OpenMinds and the DFRLab used the Telegram API via the Telethon library to collect an initial dataset of 2.9 million comments posted between January 1, 2024 and April 1, 2025 in 110 Telegram channels. The initial set of 110 channels was drawn from a broader list of information-focused Telegram channels operating in occupied regions—primarily in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk (with an emphasis on Mariupol), as well as a smaller number of channels associated with Kharkiv, Odesa, and Mykolaiv. The two key criteria for including channels in the dataset were the presence of open comment sections at the time of data collection and a clear association with an occupied city or region, either through the channel’s stated location or its role in representing official figures or occupation authorities. In this dataset of 2.9 million collected comments, 96,684 comments were identified from 3,634 accounts exhibiting consistent bot-like behavior, such as posting unusually high numbers of comments or repeatedly posting identical comments, especially across multiple accounts. A more detailed description of indicators of bot-like behaviors can be found in the next section.

To better examine how these accounts behaved, the dataset was broadened to include other channels where the accounts were active. Further comments made by these accounts were retrieved from an archive of 4,500 additional Telegram channels provided by the TeleZip project, expanding our total dataset to approximately 3.37 million comments. OpenMinds then manually identified and mapped an additional 144 channels, representing all occupied regions, including those under long-term occupation (Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk), in an expanded dataset. This resulted in 316,790 bot comments from channels associated with occupied territories on which to conduct analysis.

To better understand the narratives disseminated by these bot accounts, the authors analyzed the comments to identify recurring themes through a combination of automated and manual methods. By applying the topic modeling framework BERTopic to the initial set of bot comments from the initial 110 channels, the authors identified a preliminary set of thematic topical clusters. These clusters were then manually refined and consolidated to merge semantically similar groupings, resulting in a final typology of sixty-nine distinct narrative themes (see appendix).

To ensure robustness, the authors manually annotated a stratified random sample of 3,450 comments from the originally identified 110 channels, comprising fifty comments per topic as labeled by a trained classifier. This annotated subset served as the foundation for further classification of the full dataset. Additional comments were categorized using a combination of keyword matching and GPT-4-assisted classification, based on prompts crafted from the manually labeled examples. These methods allowed for nuanced detection of topic boundaries and the ability to recognize paraphrased or subtly framed versions of the same narratives. Quality-control steps were implemented throughout, including iterative prompt tuning and manual validation checks to minimize false positives and thematic drift.

In parallel, the authors manually labeled the 3,450 comments to indicate whether or not they contained explicitly pro-Russian content, defined as messages expressing positive propaganda in support of Russia. This binary annotation of pro-Russian vs. non-pro-Russian was used to fine-tune an additional classifier based on the cointegrated/rubert-tiny2 model, which was then applied to the full dataset of 3.37 million comments to distinguish between comments containing pro-Russian propaganda and those that did not. The classifier demonstrated strong performance, with an overall F1 score of 0.96. (A model with perfect precision and recall will have an F1 score of 1.00.)

Indicators of bot-like activity

Accounts exhibiting bot-like behavior were identified through a combination of inauthentic characteristics in account activity and appearance.

One of the best initial indicators of a potential bot is a very high volume of account activity. While being an active commenter does not necessarily guarantee that an account is automated, the higher the volume of comments made by an account, the greater the likelihood that it is automated. Seven observed accounts posted more than 1,000 comments in a single day, for example, yet their user IDs did not appear in the investigated dataset, suggesting the comments may have been de-platformed by Telegram. While there is no way to confirm this, Telegram does detect and block new accounts with suspicious or unusually high activity patterns, forcing network operators to continually generate new accounts.

We observed at least two waves of bot removals and subsequent account regeneration in the dataset:

April 8-10, 2024: 208 accounts showed their last activity during this period, while at least 110 new ones appeared around the same time.
September 3, 2024: 124 accounts stopped activity on the same day. On September 5–6, 159 new accounts became active.

Graphic depicting the activity of 3,634 Telegram users identified as bots based on behavioral patterns. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

Removed Telegram accounts were often marked as “deleted” on the platform, leaving only the comment itself, unless the group administrator deleted the account. Other accounts remained active, continuing to post for extended periods, or became inactive but retained their profiles for potential future use.

Screenshot of a Telegram post with bot-like amplification. Five out of six comments under this post were made by bot-like accounts promoting the narrative classified as “terrorist drone attacks on civilian infrastructure.” As of May 2025, four of the five bots had already been deleted. (Source: @nashenergodar/archive)

Bot operators must strike a balance between propagating messaging at scale and avoiding platform detection. Most of the bots that remained active were more restrained in their behavior, as it appears that posting less frequently allowed them to avoid de-platforming. Nevertheless, the bot accounts in the dataset published an average of eighty-four comments per day (median: fifty) to occupied territory-based channels.

Graph depicting the distribution of the daily number of comments for bot accounts. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

Odd or inconsistent profiles are also potential indicators of inauthentic accounts. The accounts in the dataset rarely had profile photos; when they did, the picture was often inconsistent with the account name (for example, a female profile picture would appear with a traditionally male username).

Profile of a user where a female profile picture accompanies an Eastern European male name that is not traditionally used by females. Blur added. (Source: Telegram)

The names attached to these accounts frequently changed, while their usernames or handles remained the same. The usernames were typically a random string of Latin characters and numbers with no apparent meaning. This suggests the possibility of automatically generated usernames, as it would be time-consuming to create authentic-sounding usernames for thousands of accounts that would also remain consistent with the profile if the user’s persona changed.

A change in persona for user “kewalian” from female-presenting “Maria Gorbunova” on December 10, 2024 to male-presenting “Xaro. T” by May 9, 2025. Aside from this change, the account has been dormant since October 20, 2024. (Source: kewalian, left; kewalian/archive, right)

The most common username pattern in the network applied a random combination of Latin letters, typically eight to thirteen characters in length. The DFRLab identified several usernames of this type belonging to this network (kewalian, padraysherta, juragrelat) as probable bots in a previous investigation. Other username patterns included a first name followed by random characters and numbers after an underscore, such as Renee_75nen and Calvin_62lnv, as well as combinations of names and surnames that resembled Russian names, such as Konst_Solivey and VoronovVova.

Graphic displaying usernames of the 250 most active accounts in the subset, many of which were characterized by seemingly nonsensical strings of characters. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

While patterns in the timing of posts were once a fairly reliable indicator of bot-like activity, campaign operators have become increasingly sophisticated about concealing identifiable temporal patterns. The timing of bot comment publication in this dataset did not differ significantly from that of real users, suggesting that they were scheduled to appear active during regular daytime hours, much like authentic accounts based in the region.

Graph depicting the distribution of posting times for accounts identified as authentic versus bot accounts. For the comparison of posting time distributions, the authors used a random sample of non-bot comments from the channels represented in the dataset, equal in size to the number of bot comments. The time zone is GMT+4, Moscow time. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

The average bot comment length was 120 characters, distinguishing it from authentic comments, which tended to be shorter in length. This was determined by comparing bot comments to an identically sized random sample of non-bot comments from the same channels.

A graph depicting the differences in distribution of comment length between accounts identified as authentic versus bot accounts. For comparison of comment length, the authors used a random sample of non-bot comments from the same channels, matched in size to the number of bot comments. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

Artificial narratives

The primary characteristic of the accounts was their narrative-driven messaging. These narratives were crafted to promote a unified message of a strong and successful Russia and a corrupt Ukraine that had forgotten about its people within the occupied regions. Unlike social media bots that sometimes leverage large language models (LLMs) to engage in ideological debates with real users in comment sections, these bots spread predefined narratives through isolated, individual comments that did not engage with other commenters. These were intended to craft and curate the appearance of general consensus without provoking contradictory responses from other commenters.

At the time of publishing, automatically identifying bots through identical messages is becoming increasingly difficult; LLMs are often used to rewrite a single message and turn it into hundreds of unique variations. Still, the core idea and narrative remain the same, and these messages often repeat the same patterns, allowing for the identification and tracking of general posting trends.

In the channels from the occupied territories, out of the 316,000 comments left by bots, approximately one-third (106,598) were unique.

Using LLMs to rewrite comments to make them unique can sometimes work against bot operators, as generative AI sometimes makes mistakes, resulting in unusual phrasing, as shown in the table below.

While on the surface, many of the comments formed complete sentences that made grammatical sense, their context was often absurd, or even telling, as some comments inadvertently ended up being anti-Russian in nature. At the same time, other comments made little sense to a human reader and presented a slightly more organized jumble of words with limited cohesive meaning. While some mistakes and inconsistencies could be attributed to language barriers, the clear use of grammar alongside mistakes in meaning suggests a high probability that the comments were not made by a human, with the errors more consistent with an incorrect machine interpretation that was never proofread. Occasionally, these comments promoted the same link, leading to Russian media articles favorable to Russia or reiterating Russian propaganda. The duplication of these links in the comments was likely intended to gain visibility for the articles and redirect users to popular Russian online news outlets, such as Izvestia, RIA Novosti, or RBK. Notably, a significant number of comments also redirected towards articles in the New York Times, potentially attempting to add validity to the comments themselves by including a mainstream Western source.

A graphic displaying the top ten websites linked in the identified bot comments. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

Narrative themes

Pro-Russian vs anti-Ukrainian propaganda

All the bot comments could be divided into three mutually exclusive narrative categories:

Positive propaganda promoting Russia and its government;
Hostile anti-Ukrainian propaganda—including narratives that portray Ukraine as a failed state, personal attacks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and accusations of terrorism, among others;
Neutral messages ranging from comments with emojis only, to neutral statements about the horrors of war and the need for peaceful coexistence between nations (without directly pushing pro-Russian narratives).

Pro-Russian propaganda

Pro-Russian propaganda narratives ranged from general praise of the country’s leadership, economy, or military to more localized messages about improvements made by specific politicians or political parties.

This category can be roughly divided into two subsets. The first is general pro-government content found across various Telegram channels, including support for Putin, admiration for the Russian army, discussions of national unity, and mentions of Russia’s strong diplomatic ties with countries such as India and those in Africa. The second type is more specific to the occupied territories and focuses on local issues, including repairs to infrastructure, access to medicine, reconstruction efforts, the work of local administrations, quality of mobile connectivity, and support for curfews. These narratives aimed to portray life under Russian control as improving and to highlight the state’s active assistance to people in the region.

When isolating the share of pro-Russian narratives among all comments, the accounts promoted this type of messaging almost twice as often in occupied territory channels as in other channels where the bot accounts were also active.

A graph depicting the percentage of pro-Russian messages on occupied territory channels as opposed to other channels on which they were active. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

The ratio of pro-Russian to other types of comments was inconsistent over time. In March and April 2024, the bots sharply increased the number of messages positively boasting about various aspects of the occupation administration and life under occupation. In contrast, the share of propaganda promoting positive messages on other Telegram channels within Russia also grew, but not as dramatically.

A graph depicting the dynamics of posts containing pro-Russian messaging on occupied territory channels as opposed to other channels. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

One reason for this discrepancy can be attributed to a separate group of accounts created specifically to target the occupied territories and promote pro-Russian narratives. This group is clearly visible on the chart below, clustered in the upper-right quadrant, characterized by a high share of comments in occupied territory channels and a larger proportion of positive pro-Russian propaganda content. These bots were predominantly active in the occupied territories, and their comments primarily focused on pro-Russian propaganda.

A graph depicting clusters of bot accounts containing pro-Russian messaging on temporarily occupied territories (TOT) channels. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

The accounts promoting pro-Russian narratives shared one key feature with the rest of the bot network: a high volume of comments aimed at discrediting Zelenskyy. Overall, though, their messages were more focused on pro-Russian propaganda rather than explicitly anti-Ukrainian rhetoric.

Alongside the emergence of this new group of bots, new themes began to appear in a coordinated manner starting in early April 2024. Some of the recurring themes included the restoration of water, electricity, and gas services, as well as infrastructure repairs and upgrades, and the creation of job opportunities for local residents.

A collection of graphs depicting the dynamics of daily posts from bot accounts promoting the top 20 identified pro-Russian narratives. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

Anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western comments

While pro-Russian messages showed a fair degree of variety, anti-Ukrainian messages concentrated on a few key themes. Nearly fifty thousand comments—almost every sixth comment—mentioned Zelenskyy, using typical narratives from Russian propaganda ranging from personal attacks and accusations of corruption or drug use to claims of illegitimacy or tyranny.

Beyond Zelenskyy, the anti-Ukrainian comments also promoted broader hostile narratives, most notably accusations of Nazism and extreme Ukrainian nationalism. However, this particular narrative gradually declined in frequency over time, suggesting either a shift in messaging priorities or a reduction in effectiveness.

A graph depicting the dynamics in the number of daily comments from bot accounts promoting the narrative accusing Ukraine of Nazi ideology. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

Accusations of terrorism, shelling of civilians, and deliberate provocations were also common, all serving to delegitimize Ukraine’s leadership and shift blame for the war onto Ukrainian actions.

Anti-Western messaging, meanwhile, targeted broad entities such as the West and specific countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. Bots frequently accused Western governments of fueling the war for their gain by profiting from arms sales while sacrificing Ukrainian lives. NATO was framed as a hostile bloc, while politicians like former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson or figures like Elon Musk were mentioned to reinforce the idea that the West, not Russia, was the actual aggressor. Together, these narratives created a dual image of Ukraine as a reckless proxy and the West as a cynical puppeteer.

Examining the most frequently mentioned names in bot-generated comments revealed a clear pattern. After Zelenskyy and Putin, the majority of references were to foreign politicians seen by Russia as adversarial. Figures such as former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Johnson, former US President Joe Biden, and US President Donald Trump appeared regularly, often in the context of blaming the West for escalating the war or exploiting it for geopolitical or economic gain.

A graph depicting the top 10 most frequently mentioned public figures in bot comments. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

Mentions of historical or ideological figures such as Stepan Bandera were also common, typically used to reinforce narratives about Ukrainian nationalism or Nazism. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials like Mykhailo Podolyak or Oleksiy Danilov were targeted as representatives of what the bots framed as a deceitful or extremist regime. Overall, the prominence of these names highlights how the bots utilized recognizable individuals to personalize the narratives and enhance emotional engagement with broader propaganda themes, as these individuals and figures from the current Ukrainian presidential administration could be perceived as enemy entities or symbols of larger societal issues.

In contrast, pro-Russian propaganda was far less personalized. With the notable exception of Putin, who was consistently praised in comments for his leadership, stability, and support for the occupied territories, such messaging rarely revolved around specific individuals. Instead, it tended to highlight institutions, infrastructure, or abstract notions like national strength and unity.

Active vs. reactive propaganda in Russian vs. occupied channels

Reactive propaganda in Russia-focused channels

To better understand Russia’s broader strategy of using bots for information influence, we analyzed the activity of the same accounts across 4,500 additional Telegram channels that were primarily based in Russia.

Broadly speaking, these bots adapted their messaging to align with specific political events and dates, such as increasing their activity ahead of Putin’s re-election, on the anniversary of the full-scale invasion, or after the terrorist attack at Russia’s Crocus City Hall.

A graph depicting the number of messages of identified bot accounts on Telegram on a daily basis across the broader dataset. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

An example of event-driven messaging occurred following the launch of a Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region in the summer of 2024. During this time, the bots active in Russia-based channels suddenly began praising the Russian government’s support for local residents. As shown in the graph below, messaging activity from pro-Kremlin bot accounts rose sharply in late July and remained elevated for weeks. These accounts deployed a coordinated campaign to project calm, reinforce trust in the authorities, and depict an effective state response, highlighting themes such as emergency payments, access to medicine, and medical institutions functioning as usual.

The messaging was emotionally reassuring and politically strategic: users were told not to panic, and that regional officials were doing everything possible to support residents. This narrative technique, aimed at defusing public anxiety and shielding the regime’s image during moments of perceived vulnerability, mirrors Russia’s broader information tactics in occupied Ukrainian territories, where bots similarly promote a sense of normalcy and state competence in the midst of disruption.

A graph depicting bot activity over time on all channels promoting the narrative of Russia aiding residents of the Kursk region. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

A similar pattern emerged after the terrorist attack at Russia’s Crocus City Hall in March 2024. Bot accounts active in Russia-based channels rapidly mobilized around keywords related to the event, flooding comment sections with praise for Russian security services and shifting blame onto Ukraine. This swift, coordinated reaction aimed to frame the Kremlin as both capable and under threat, deflecting responsibility while reinforcing narratives of external aggression.

Another topic that emerged in direct response to external events was the official accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO. Bots began downplaying the move as a threat to Russia, emphasizing that it was less provocative than the potential accession of Ukraine. Their argument typically emphasized that joining NATO was not inherently dangerous; what mattered, they claimed, was whether NATO military bases would appear on that country’s territory. Although Finland joined NATO in April 2023 and Sweden in March 2024, bot comments consistently referenced both countries together as part of the same narrative.

A graph depicting the dynamics of the number of messages over the whole monitored period that include narratives about Sweden and Finland joining NATO. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

An additional example is a wave of comments praising Russia’s alleged success in combating corruption. Notably, this narrative effectively went dormant during the period before and after Putin’s re-election, further illustrating a degree of strategic coordination behind these messages.

A graph depicting dynamics of number of messages over the whole monitored period that include narratives praising Russian anti-corruption efforts. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

Narrative campaigns in the occupied territory channels

In the occupied territory-based channels, however, the overall dynamics differed from the Russia-wide pattern. Aside from the anniversary of the invasion, most activity spikes were tied to the launch or intensification of a specific information campaign or narrative.

A graph depicting the daily volume of posts from pro-Russian bot accounts to channels identified as operating in the TOT. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

By merging two narratives–global catastrophe and betrayed peace accords–the bots sought to position Russia as both a victim of international hypocrisy and the last defender of global stability.

One of the spikes in occupied territory bot activity occurred in early March 2024, when the bots amplified apocalyptic narratives about an impending World War III. These messages were filled with alarmist language and existential warnings (“the clock is ticking,” “if it happens, no one will be left alive”), framing Russia as a reluctant but prepared actor on the global stage. At the same time, the bots revived the long-running narrative blaming Ukraine and the West for the collapse of the Minsk agreements. The comments portrayed Russia as the only party genuinely interested in peace, repeatedly accusing Ukraine of ignoring ceasefire commitments and framing Western support as duplicitous. By merging two narratives—global catastrophe and betrayed peace accords—the bots sought to position Russia as both a victim of international hypocrisy and the last defender of global stability. Below is an example of one such message that was shared 103 times by different bot accounts across different occupied territory channels.

Another visible peak came at the end of May 2024, coinciding with a surge in coordinated praise for Putin. Bots across occupied territory channels launched a campaign portraying residents of the so-called “new Russian regions” as deeply grateful to the Russian president. Commenters repeated variations of the same message: Putin had “done so much” for the occupied territories, brought them “into a strong and modern state,” and was “widely respected” by locals. The example below depicts a message shared by account @RareHandleHub on an occupied territory channel, with the message itself duplicated thirty-three more times across different channels.

Some narratives, which may have initially appeared to be reactive responses to specific problems or disruptions, have become persistent fixtures due to the enduring nature of these issues. A notable example includes repeated comments about restoring electricity, gas, and water supplies. Many occupied regions continue to suffer from serious infrastructure problems; the bots appear to be aimed at easing public frustration and managing tension with the occupying administrations.

Graphs depicting dynamics of number of messages over the whole monitored period that include narratives about restoring water supply (top) and electric and gas supplies (bottom) to occupied territories. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

A case study in high-impact bot messaging

A Telegram account with the username @nieucqanoberr offers a clear illustration of how short-lived yet high-impact bot activity works. The account was active for just one day—May 11, 2024—during which it published 1,391 comments across sixty-five Telegram channels and chats, including twenty-nine messages in occupied territory channels. Its activity continued from 09:49 to 23:47 Moscow time (GMT +4), averaging one comment every thirty-six seconds.

Unlike simplistic bots that spam identical messages, this account adapted its content to the context of each conversation. It pushed various narratives while responding to previous messages and tailoring its replies to reinforce pro-Kremlin talking points. As a result, it did not focus on a single topic; instead, its comments touched on forty different themes from the sixty-nine thematic categories identified in our analysis (see appendix). Roughly four hundred messages were classified as pro-Russian propaganda, while nearly one thousand were either anti-Ukrainian or neutral. Notably, 24 percent of the comments mentioned Zelenskyy, often in a critical or mocking tone.

The chart below shows a timeline of the account’s activity across the twenty Telegram channels and the chats where it was most active. Each dot represents a published comment, illustrating not only the intensity of the account’s posting but also its near-continuous engagement throughout the day.

A graph depicting the dynamics of all 1,224 comments made by one bot over twenty Telegram channels in a span of one day. (Source: OpenMinds; Telegram)

Highly active accounts, such as @nieucqanoberr, were often quickly removed, offering a small sign of Telegram’s efforts to de-platform coordinated disinformation, although their removal came only after thousands of messages had already been posted.

Conclusion

Manufacturing an artificial consensus in favor of Russia on social media and messaging platforms could serve as a justification for Russian control of the occupied regions.

Russia’s manipulation of the information environment as a tool of occupation and its assumption of control over telecommunications services make it difficult for people in occupied Ukraine to receive factual information and retain their connections with the outside world, increasing their potential susceptibility to pro-Kremlin propaganda. As Ukraine and Russia circle a possible peace agreement, one of the key issues remains the control of these regions. Manufacturing an artificial consensus in favor of Russia on social media and messaging platforms could serve as a justification for Russian control of the occupied regions.

The active spread of pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian narratives on a popular platform like Telegram is yet another way for Russia to ensure it is capturing the attention of as many occupied Ukrainian residents as possible, making its propaganda insidious and unavoidable.

The active spread of pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian narratives on a popular platform like Telegram is yet another way for Russia to ensure it is capturing the attention of as many occupied Ukrainian residents as possible, making its propaganda insidious and unavoidable. The use of bots makes these messages easier to spread, allowing for mass spamming in channels used by locals on a daily basis. While we have seen efforts by Telegram to de-platform bots and limit inauthentic activity, Russia’s ability to continue creating new accounts shows the limitations of these actions, given the persistent creation of bots.

This also creates an additional complication for Ukrainian authorities in their attempts to reach their citizens in occupied territories and provide them with accurate and up-to-date information about the war and possible peace negotiations. With many bots operating within groups and channels used by people in occupied Ukraine, there is a need to identify ways of mitigating their potential negative influence on the general population.

About the Authors

Yuliia Dukach, PhD, is head of disinformation investigations at OpenMinds. She is an expert in disinformation research with over five years of experience in
investigative data journalism, applying advanced skills in Python and machine learning to analyze computational propaganda and online misinformation.

Iryna Adam is a research associate at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. Adam researches disinformation centered around weapons of mass destruction, with a focus on Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe.

Meredith Furbish is a visiting researcher at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. Her work focuses on synthesizing qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate Russian propaganda and information manipulation.

Editors

Layla Mashkoor, deputy director of research at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab

Sviatoslav Hnizdovskiy, CEO and founder of OpenMinds

In partnership with

OpenMinds is a cognitive defence tech company countering authoritarian influence in the battle for free and open societies. OpenMinds works with over 30 governments and organizations worldwide, including Ukraine, the UK, and NATO member governments, leading StratCom agencies, and research institutions.

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The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) has operationalized the study of disinformation by exposing falsehoods and fake news, documenting human rights abuses, and building digital resilience worldwide.

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Appendix

Appendix A: Full list of narrative themes

Narrative theme	Number of bot comments in channels of occupied territories
Criticism of Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian leadership	48,044
Criticism of Ukraine, its government, population, or actions on the front	13,500
Criticism of the “collective West,” double standards, and interference	11,798
Criticism of the United States and its policies	10,917
Humanitarian or government assistance to residents of the occupied territories	10,576
The threat posed by UAVs, particularly to Russia	10,294
Restoring the water supply in the occupied territories	9,591
Accusations of Nazism in Ukraine	9,575
Development of transport infrastructure in the occupied territories	9,226
Ensuring the safety and presence of protective structures in the occupied territories	9,140
Glorification of the Russian army and combatants	8,784
Cultural life and development of cultural initiatives in the occupied territories	8,772
Support for law enforcement in the fight against crime	7,515
Ecological problems and cleanliness in the occupied territories	7,443
Integration of sports infrastructure and events in the occupied territories	6,631
Education and school life in the occupied territories	6,242
Doctors and medical care in the occupied territories	5,663
Calls for peace, negotiations, or references to Russian initiatives to end the war	5,500
Threats of nuclear war, fears of strikes on Zaporizhzhia NPP, and criticism of the IAEA	5,440
Restoration of electricity or gas supply after attacks	5,423
Putin’s encouragement	5,364
Praise to local and federal authorities in the occupied territories	5,181
Accusations of Ukrainian non-compliance with the Minsk agreements	5,004
Accusing Ukraine of terrorism or the shelling of civilians	5,000
Reconstruction and restoration of infrastructure in the occupied territories	4,768
Availability of jobs and income levels in the occupied territories	4,457
NATO as a hostile bloc, criticism of its actions	4,442
Criticism of Ukrainian nationalism	4,436
Praise for Russia’s anti-corruption efforts	4,089
Wishes for peace, safety, and emotional support for victims or hope for a better future	3,796
Gratitude or approval of the work of the Russian rescue services in the occupied territories	3,571
Development of banking infrastructure and financial services in the occupied territories	2,989
Calls to serve the motherland and ideas about the future of Russia	2,979
Development of agriculture and industry in the occupied territories	2,915
The simplification of administrative services (Multifunctional center (MFC), passporting, etc.)	2,874
The recognition of the occupied territories as part of Russia	2,715
SVO (“special military operation”) goes according to plan, Russia wins	2,600
There are no national conflicts in Russia, all nations are equal	2,346
Improving mobile communications and the internet in the occupied territories	2,259
Comments on the risks of a third world war due to Western intervention	1,909
Positive comments about the state of the Russian economy, independence and stability	1,893
Activities of local or federal authorities to reduce prices for the occupied territories	1,603
Media literacy, exposing false news, and discussing trust in the media	1,388
Positive comments about the fight against drugs in the occupied territories	1,336
Comments asserting that Russia is a reliable and important diplomatic partner; may include positive assessments of relations with individual countries	1,276
Positive assessment of the activities of the United Russia Party in the occupied territories	1,167
Comments about fear, psychological exhaustion, or anxiety due to the war	1,058
Mention or criticism of Oleksiy Arestovych	850
Prices and availability of fuel in the region	811
Criticism of the Ukrainian leadership calling on Ukrainians to overthrow the government	691
Happy holidays, patriotic wishes	654
Information about payments, benefits, and social support for the Russian military	644
Support for partial mobilization and its approval among residents of the occupied territories	592
Criticism of the United Kingdom (especially Boris Johnson) for interfering in the war	568
Positive coverage of Russia’s relations with China	547
Organization of filtration camps and procedures for crossing borders between the occupied territories and Russia	514
Protecting Russians who have property abroad from criticism	499
Comments on the importance of paying taxes	405
Support for curfews as a security measure	309
Mentions of the use or allegations of the use of chemical weapons	276
Links to Elon Musk statements about the war that support Russian narratives	274
Propaganda of Russian culture through exhibitions, art, and fashion	273
Examples of assistance to residents of the Kursk region (payments, medicine, government support)	200
Russia’s relations with African countries	129
Positive coverage of Russia’s relations with Iran	124
Positive coverage of Russia’s relations with Turkey	95
Mention of the Czech Republic and its (pro-Ukrainian) position regarding the war	87
Discussion of Sweden and Finland joining NATO, justifying the lack of reaction from Russia	77
Positive coverage of Russia’s relations with India	33

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In the fight against foreign information manipulation, the US can’t afford to disarm

Bailey Galicia — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 14:53:26 +0000

As its adversaries wage an information war, the United States is retreating from the front lines. Washington has dismantled key programs for countering foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Foreign Influence Task Force. This leaves a dangerous vacuum in the US national defense posture. If left unaddressed, this vulnerability will degrade public trust, fracture civil society, and threaten US military cohesion.

Because conflicts between states increasingly occur in a gray zone—involving actions that fall just short of war—the United States must treat foreign information manipulation as an act of hybrid war and build societal resilience to match the threat.

Feeding false narratives

The Trump administration’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence makes clear that China, Russia, and Iran are using evolving information warfare tactics to sow dissension and conflict among Americans. TikTok accounts linked to a Chinese propaganda apparatus targeted candidates from both political parties in the 2022 midterm elections. Beijing uses these covert influence operations to “weaken the United States internally” and cast doubt on US institutions.

Meanwhile, Russia is deploying deepfakes using artificial intelligence (AI) to obscure its involvement in information manipulation while feeding false narratives to increase public divisiveness on already polarizing topics, such as abortion. Iran, too, has combined cyberattacks with information manipulation. Ahead of the 2024 election, Iran sponsored fake websites posing as news outlets for veterans, using them to spread narratives that painted both major political parties as betrayers of military interests. And Iranian cyber actors linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accessed email accounts associated with US President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign to weaponize internal communications, spread manipulated narratives, and erode trust in the democratic process. Leaked or fabricated content from such breaches can be used to stoke conspiracy theories, cast doubt on the fairness of the election, and convince voters that the system is rigged. All of this can undermine the legitimacy of the outcome before ballots are even counted.

Defending speech and the information environment

Despite these threats, Washington has scaled back key defenses against foreign influence, framing preexisting defenses as threats to free speech rather than tools to protect it. In February, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency paused all election-related disinformation monitoring. In April, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio disbanded the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a State Department office tasked with tracking and coordinating FIMI across the federal government, claiming that the organization “nearly destroyed America’s long free speech history” by policing domestic discourse. These concerns are not without merit. GEC grants did, at times, fund organizations like the Global Disinformation Index, which targeted US independent media by labeling outlets on the political right as sources of disinformation. But “unilaterally disarming” the information space reflect a false choice: between defending the freedom of speech and defending against foreign manipulation.

Free expression is not protected when foreign adversaries are allowed to distort the information space unchecked. Defending the United States against FIMI is not about silencing debate but ensuring that US citizens can engage in it free from foreign interference. The solution is not returning to the controversial models that brought the United States to this moment, but learning from states that are already innovating.

Building information resilience

The Trump administration’s executive order on national resilience calls on state and local governments to lead on preparedness. States can, and should, play a more active role in defending the information environment, but the United States must take a whole-of-society approach that empowers state-level innovation while reinforcing federal coordination. States are already testing cyber and information defense models that have the potential to be scaled. But without federal backing, these efforts will remain fragmented and vulnerable to political swings or resource gaps.

A scalable example is Ohio Cyber Reserve which has both preventative and responsive functions. The reserve trains local students, business, and governments on cyber best practices while maintaining the capacity to respond to cyberattacks when they occur. This architecture should be adapted to the information domain. The Cyber Reserve’s mission could expand to include key elements of information integrity such as detecting deepfakes, recognizing coordinated influence campaigns, and promoting responsible digital engagement. This model would foster societal resilience against foreign manipulation by engaging directly with local communities. When suspected foreign information campaigns emerge, these units could collaborate with local media, civil society, and trusted community leaders to provide timely, accurate information without suppressing speech. Such action would operationalize bottom-up information resilience and should be institutionalized through statewide information security readiness plans and integrated into existing emergency response frameworks.

Similarly, the Ohio National Guard’s 179th Cyberspace Wing, established to enhance cyberspace capabilities for the Air Force and to drive innovation in information warfare, offers a valuable blueprint for expanding military response to foreign information threats. Before the Cyberspace Wing reaches full operational capability in 2027, the Department of Defense should develop and embed a “FIMI response” unit into its mission set. This unit would provide distributed, nonpartisan rapid-response capabilities that can respond to and monitor emerging information threats, especially during elections or national security events. These capabilities must be designed to remain strictly nonpartisan, be nonintrusive for US citizens, and have clearly delineated safeguards to prevent encroachment on protected speech.

Finally, to maintain superiority for twenty-first-century warfare and keep pace with adversaries such as China, the Trump administration should formally integrate “information integrity” into its National Cyber Strategy. By explicitly recognizing foreign information manipulation as a form of cyber-enabled threat, Washington can better mobilize public-private partnerships, enhance attribution capabilities, and equip local actors to respond. Incorporating information integrity into the cyber agenda would ensure that acts of foreign information manipulation, from deepfake personas to AI-generated propaganda, are treated as strategic incursions demanding whole-of-nation defense.

As adversaries grow more agile in exploiting digital vulnerabilities, the United States must adopt an innovative defense posture that matches the pace and complexity of foreign influence operations. Promoting information resilience as a core pillar of national security is a strategic imperative for winning in the era of hybrid warfare.

Bailey Galicia is a project assistant with the GeoStrategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

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‘All of Ukraine is ours’: Putin’s Russian imperialism is now on full display

Peter Dickinson — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 17:05:46 +0000

Russian President Vladimir Putin believes “all of Ukraine is ours,” he declared last week. The Kremlin leader’s revealing statement is an indication of the increasingly confident mood in Moscow as Russia continues to make slow but steady progress on the Ukrainian battlefield against a backdrop of deepening Western disunity. It also serves as a timely reminder of the unapologetic Russian imperialism that is driving Europe’s largest invasion since World War II.

Putin’s comments came on June 20 during his headliner appearance at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, a flagship annual event that is often referred to as Russia’s Davos. “I have said many times that I consider the Russian and Ukrainian peoples to be one people. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours,” Putin told forum guests. “We have an old rule. Wherever a Russian soldier sets foot is ours.”

Tellingly, Putin’s claim that “all of Ukraine” belongs to Russia was met with what appeared to be spontaneous laughter and applause from many of those attending the St. Petersburg event. This strikingly enthusiastic audience reaction says much about the normalization of imperialistic sentiment in today’s Russia after more than eleven years of the country’s colonial war against neighboring Ukraine.

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Kyiv was quick to condemn the Russian leader’s statements. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Putin’s “performance” was confirmation of his expansionist imperial ambitions, and warned that the threat posed by resurgent Russian imperialism extended to “Belarus, the Baltic states, Moldova, the Caucasus, countries like Kazakhstan, and every place on Earth that Russian killers can reach.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Putin of demonstrating “complete disdain” for ongoing peace efforts initiated by US President Donald Trump. “While the United States and the rest of the world have called for an immediate end to the killing, Russia’s top war criminal discusses plans to seize more Ukrainian territory and kill more Ukrainians,” commented Sybiha.

Others were considerably less diplomatic, with many Ukrainians taking to social media to vent their anger over this very public embrace of Russian imperialism. “Putin says Russians and Ukrainians are one people while Russians are bombing, raping, and killing us,” commented Ukrainian security analyst Maria Avdeeva. “We’re not your brothers. We’re your survivors.”

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None of this is entirely new, of course. The contempt for Ukrainian statehood and national identity that was on display at the St. Petersburg forum is deeply rooted in Russian imperial tradition and has become an increasingly prominent feature of Putin’s reign over the past twenty five years. As Putin himself acknowledged last week, he has consistently claimed that Ukrainians are in fact Russians (“one people”). As long ago as 2008, he was already telling US President George W. Bush that in his opinion Ukraine was “not even a country.”

Ever since Russia’s war against Ukraine began in 2014 with the seizure of Crimea, Putin has been weaponizing history to undermine Ukraine’s legitimacy and justify his own escalating campaign of imperial aggression. On the eve of the February 2022 full-scale invasion, he took the unusual step of publishing an entire 5000-word history essay that read like a declaration of war against Ukrainian statehood. Once the attack was underway, he likened his invasion of Ukraine to the imperial conquests of eighteenth century Russian Czar Peter the Great, while arguing that he was “returning historically Russian lands.”

Many of Putin’s historical distortions border on the absurd. He makes no mention of the entire centuries-long struggle for Ukrainian statehood, while conveniently ignoring countless examples of Russian imperial policies designed to silence Ukrainians and erase Ukrainian identity. Instead, he argues that Ukraine is an artificial entity created by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks in the early twentieth century. Putin is clearly not a fan of Voltaire, who observed almost three hundred years ago in 1731 that “Ukraine has always aspired to be free.”

Putin’s obsessive Ukraine denial has set the tone for the whole Russian establishment and given rise to similarly eliminationist language from numerous other Kremlin officials. In early 2024, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev stated that “the existence of Ukraine is mortally dangerous for Ukrainians.” More recently, close Putin aide Nikolai Patrushev announced that Ukraine may soon “cease to exist.” Vicious anti-Ukrainian rhetoric has become so commonplace in the Kremlin-controlled Russian media that UN officials believe it may constitute “incitement to genocide.”

The actions of the Russian army in Ukraine closely mirror this genocidal rhetoric. In areas of Ukraine seized by the Kremlin, thousands of people have been arrested based on their pro-Ukrainian stance and have since disappeared into a vast network of prisons. A UN probe has determined that these mass detentions are a crime against humanity. Remaining residents in occupied regions of Ukraine are forced to accept Russian citizenship and subjected to relentless russification in every sphere of public life, with all traces of Ukrainian statehood and national identity systematically removed or suppressed.

Meanwhile, Trump’s efforts to broker a peace deal have proved fruitless in large part due to Putin’s uncompromising position. While Ukraine has backed a US proposal for an unconditional ceasefire, Russia has refused to do likewise. Instead, Moscow has sought to derail ceasefire talks while making maximalist demands that would leave Ukraine internationally isolated, partitioned, disarmed, and forced to reject an independent identity in favor of an imperial Russian ideology. Such terms would be fatal for Ukrainian statehood.

The widespread Russian belief that Ukraine has no right to exist helps to explain the brutality of the current invasion and makes a complete mockery of US-led efforts to broker a compromise peace. Putin’s latest comments now provide further proof that he has no real interest in a negotiated settlement and is determined to destroy Ukraine as a state and as a nation. This extreme brand of Russian imperialism is the root cause of the invasion.

Until Russia is forced to abandon its imperial ambitions and accept the inevitability of an independent Ukraine, the war will continue. This long overdue shift in Russian perceptions can be achieved by dramatically increasing Western military aid to Ukraine, strengthening support for Ukraine’s domestic defense industry, and making the kind of long-term commitments that remove any doubt over the West’s collective resolve to safeguard Ukrainian security. A lasting peace is possible, but it will only come once Russia recognizes that Ukraine is too strong to be subjugated.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

The Ukrainian experience highlights the gravity of the hybrid threat and the importance of an integrated response. The overall message to Western policymakers is clear: Moscow views hybrid warfare as an important Russian foreign policy tool and will continue expanding its campaign. Europe cannot afford to wait for Russian hybrid attacks to escalate further before building the advanced capabilities required to counter this threat.

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There have been growing reports of Russian hybrid war-style attacks across the EU since the onset of Russian aggression against Ukraine eleven years ago. This trend gained significant additional momentum following the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Typical incidents include cyberattacks targeting infrastructure, sabotage including arson attacks, and attempts to disrupt military aid destined for Ukraine. Moscow is also accused of investing billions of dollars in sophisticated social media campaigns to influence the outcome of elections across Europe. The Kremlin’s hybrid operations are concentrated in central and eastern Europe, with Poland, Romania, and the Baltic states among the primary targets.

None of this is new to Ukraine. For more than a decade, Ukrainians have been learning to cope with the full range of Russia’s hybrid warfare toolbox. Russia’s attack on Ukraine began in February 2014 when Russian soldiers without insignias took control of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in a lightning operation that was accompanied by a massive wave of targeted disinformation.

Russia’s subsequent efforts to destabilize and subjugate the rest of Ukraine have involved a combination of conventional military aggression, sabotage, cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, and support for pro-Russian actors in Ukraine. Thanks to this prolonged exposure to Russian hybrid warfare, Ukraine has been able to develop countermeasures that have helped build resilience and reduce the impact of Russia’s hybrid operations.

Ukraine’s response has been a collaborative effort involving the Ukrainian government, civil society, and the private sector. In the cyber sphere, efforts to improve Ukraine’s digital security have played a key role, with the launch of the country’s popular Diia platform and the establishment of the Ministry of Digital Transformation helping to drive important digital governance reforms.

This has enhanced Ukraine’s ability to maintain public services amid acts of cyber aggression and has improved engagement with the population. Ukraine’s progress in the digital sphere has been recognized internationally, with the country climbing from the 102 spot to fifth position in the UN’s annual Online Services Index in the seven years between 2018 and 2025.

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Ukraine’s coordination structures, such as the Center for Strategic Communications and the Ministry of Digital Transformation, enable swift and well-coordinated responses across government, media, and digital channels. This offers a number of advantages in a hybrid war setting. For example, it allows the Ukrainian government to synchronize positions with proactive narrative-setting when countering the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns.

Ukraine has also benefited from a decentralized approach involving digital volunteers, civil society, and public-private partnerships. A wide range of civic tech groups and open-source investigators are active in Ukraine detecting and countering Russian disinformation. These measures have made it possible to expose Russian narratives efficiently, coordinate messaging across government and civil society, and maintain coherence during military operations.

Since 2014, Ukraine has been able to reduce Russia’s overwhelming initial advantages on the information front of the hybrid war. While Russian disinformation tactics continue to evolve and remain a major aspect of the ongoing invasion, Ukraine has managed to increasingly leverage information to shape international opinion and influence diplomatic outcomes.

At present, the European response to Russia’s hybrid war lacks the institutional agility and coordination between public sector and civil society that is evident in Ukraine. Instead, the EU and NATO have developed a number of parallel structures such as NATO’s Joint Intelligence and Security Division and the EU’s East StratCom Task Force. While these agencies continue to make meaningful contributions to the fight back against Russian hybrid warfare, they have yet to demonstrate the kind of real-time operational coordination that has served Ukraine so well.

Ukraine’s model for combating Russian hybrid warfare can’t be replicated in full, but it could serve as a practical reference point for building more adaptive and integrated responses across the West. Given Ukraine’s unique experience, it might make sense to establish a trilateral consultative framework together with the EU and NATO to enable rapid hybrid threat evaluations and coordinate responses.

Ukraine’s long record of countering Russian hybrid warfare has also highlighted the role of civil society. Kyiv’s European partners should consider increasing support for initiatives such as investigative journalism, fact-checking platforms, and technical watchdogs that can serve as support elements in a broader European defense ecosystem. In an environment where information is increasingly weaponized, Ukraine’s experience has also underlined the need to embed media literacy into the education system to ensure European citizens are able to consume information critically and are less vulnerable to Russian propaganda.

Maksym Beznosiuk is a strategic policy specialist and director of UAinFocus, an independent platform connecting Ukrainian and international experts around key Ukrainian issues.

The realist viewpoint is reflected in Hegseth’s assertion that Ukraine returning to its pre-2014 borders is “unrealistic.” It can also be seen in Trump’s statements that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “does not have the cards” in negotiations with Russia, an assertion that seems far less certain in the wake of Ukraine’s successful recent strikes on Russia’s long-distance bombers.

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Some advocates of foreign policy realism argue that the US should seek to accommodate Russia, even at Ukraine’s expense. However, this approach tends to exaggerate Russia’s strengths, while underestimating the importance of the Kremlin’s imperial objectives and the relevant fact that Russian national security doctrine identifies the US as its principal adversary. A more comprehensive realist analysis of Russia reveals that, despite its assertiveness, Moscow’s power is in fact often overstated, while its appetite for compromise is limited.

Compared to the United States, Europe, and NATO, Russia simply does not “hold the cards,” to use Trump’s phrase. Its $2 trillion economy ranks outside the world’s top ten, trailing behind the US, China, Germany, Japan, India, and others. Although Russia has weathered sanctions, the prolonged war since 2022 has left its economy overextended and vulnerable.

The Russian population of 145 million is shrinking and ranks ninth globally, far behind the US and the collective European Union. Militarily, Russia’s large conventional forces have under-performed during the invasion of Ukraine while sustaining heavy losses. Russia’s $146 billion military budget, though substantial relative to neighboring states, pales in comparison to the $968 billion US budget in 2023, or even the collective defense spending of EU member states.

Russia remains a formidable nuclear power and frequently reminds the international community of this fact. Since the very first days of the Ukraine invasion in February 2022, Putin and other Kremlin officials have engaged in regular nuclear saber-rattling. But while Russia is the only nuclear power to make such threats, Putin has repeatedly failed to act when his red lines have been crossed by the Ukrainians, and has been publicly warned by his Chinese allies not to cross the nuclear threshold.

Since 2022, Russia has lost much of its energy leverage and is no longer Europe’s key energy supplier. Meanwhile, the United States has consolidated its position as a leading global energy exporter, particularly in liquefied natural gas (LNG). This is enabling Europe to diversify away from Russia while starving the Kremlin of vital revenue and geopolitical influence.

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In realist terms, Russia’s power surpasses that of its immediate smaller neighbors but falls well short of the US or the European Union as a whole. Countries in Northern, Central, and Eastern Europe view Putin’s ambitions through a realist lens based on centuries of painful experience with Russian imperialism. They understand that Putin’s current goal of reasserting Moscow’s dominance over the territories of the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire is deeply rooted in the Kremlin’s perception of Russian national interests.

President Trump should not fall into the same trap as his predecessors. Past US administrations, from George W. Bush onward, have sought to normalize relations with Moscow but have consistently underestimated Russia’s enduring imperialist objectives. In 2001, Bush famously called Putin “trustworthy” and said he has been able to “get a sense of his soul.” And yet before the end of Bush’s second term, Putin had become increasingly hostile to the West and had invaded Georgia. US President Barack Obama then pursued a “reset” in relations with Russia, only for Putin to invade Ukraine in 2014.

US President Joe Biden initially adopted a similarly optimistic stance toward Moscow, emphasizing the importance of predictable relations with Russia. In May 2021, Biden canceled sanctions on the Kremlin’s Nord Stream II gas pipeline. The following month, he met Putin in Geneva for a bilateral summit that was widely viewed as a further concession to the Russian leader. Less than a year later, Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Looking back, it is clear that US policy toward Russia has often been shaped by the optimism of incoming administrations rather than a sober, realist understanding of Moscow’s longstanding ambitions. A deeper grasp of Russia’s objectives and capabilities could help the Trump administration, alongside European leaders, to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine and achieve a durable peace. Approaching the Kremlin from a position of strength, through the implementation of new sanctions on Russia and sustained military support for Ukraine, would be essential tools in securing that peace.

Agnia Grigas is senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of “Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire.”

Putin’s punitive peace terms are a call for Ukraine’s complete capitulation

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 21:42:17 +0000

Russian and Ukrainian delegations failed to achieve any meaningful breakthroughs when they met for peace talks in Istanbul on Monday. The event was not a complete waste of time, however. Aside from agreeing on another welcome round of prisoner swaps, the two sides also exchanged peace proposals that confirmed the complete lack of middle ground for any kind of meaningful compromise to end the fighting.

While Ukraine’s proposal laid out a fairly pragmatic vision based on battlefield realities and security concerns, Russia presented punitive peace terms that would reestablish Kremlin control over Kyiv and doom the postwar Ukrainian state to a slow but inevitable death. This uncompromising Russian position should serve as a wake-call for anyone who still believes Putin is negotiating in good faith. In reality, the Russian dictator is more determined than ever to destroy Ukraine, and is merely exploiting US-led peace talks in order to strengthen his hand and divide the West.

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The demands unveiled by the Russian delegation this week in Istanbul came as no surprise and closely mirrored the conditions outlined on numerous prior occasions by Putin and other Kremlin leaders. Nevertheless, at a time when US President Donald Trump is publicly pressing for progress toward peace, the Russian decision to deliver such a maximalist memorandum sent a clear message of defiance to Washington DC.

As expected, Moscow reiterated its call for Ukraine to withdraw completely from four Ukrainian provinces that Russia currently claims as its own but has been unable to fully occupy. This would oblige the Ukrainian authorities to hand over a number of major cities and condemn millions of their compatriots to indefinite Russian occupation. Kyiv would also be expected to officially cede these regions together with Crimea, paving the way for international recognition of Russia’s conquests.

This crushing territorial settlement is only one aspect of Russia’s vision for the comprehensive dismantling of Ukrainian statehood. In line with Putin’s peace terms, Ukraine would be forced to accept limitations on the size of its army and on the categories of weapons it is allowed to possess. The country would be also be barred from joining any military blocs or concluding alliances with foreign nations. It does not take much imagination to guess what Putin has in mind for Ukraine once it has been successfully disarmed and internationally isolated.

Nor is that all. The Kremlin’s conditions actually go much further and aim to transform Ukraine from within in ways that would erase Ukrainian identity along with the country’s political independence. Moscow’s memorandum called on Ukraine to grant Russian the status of official state language, reinstate the privileges of the Russian Orthodox Church, and adopt a Kremlin-friendly version of Ukrainian history. Meanwhile, all so-called “nationalist” Ukrainian political parties would be banned, paving the way for the installation of a puppet regime in Kyiv.

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On the morning after this week’s bilateral meeting, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev confirmed the true objective of Russia’s participation in peace talks. “The Istanbul talks are not for striking a compromise peace on someone else’s delusional terms,” commented Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s powerful National Security Council. Instead, Medvedev stated that Russia’s goal was to secure victory and ensure “the complete destruction of the neo-Nazi regime,” which is widely recognized as Kremlin code for the Ukrainian state. “That’s what the Russian memorandum published yesterday is about,” he noted.

Medvedev’s frank appraisal of the Russian position won him sarcastic praise from US Senator Lindsey Graham. “Congratulations to Mr. Medvedev for a rare moment of honesty coming from the Russian propaganda machine,” commented Trump ally Graham. “I appreciate you making it clear to the world that Putin and Russia are not remotely interested in peace.”

It is hard to argue with Graham’s assessment. For the past few months, Putin has gone out of his way to demonstrate that he has absolutely no intention of ending the war. While Ukraine has accepted a US proposal for an unconditional ceasefire, Putin has repeatedly refused to do so. Instead, he has engaged in transparent stalling tactics that make a mockery of the entire peace process.

Away from the negotiating table, Putin has dramatically increased drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, killing and wounding hundreds of civilians. On the battlefield, his armies are currently engaged in the early stages what is shaping up to be one of the biggest Russian offensives of the entire war. These are not the actions of a man who seeks peace.

After this week’s fresh confirmation of Moscow’s undiminished imperial ambitions in Ukraine, it is now surely time to abandon any lingering delusions and accept that the Russian dictator will not stop until he is stopped. Putin believes he is on a messianic mission to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and revive the Russian Empire. He currently thinks he is winning this historic struggle and will not be swayed by Trump’s comparatively trivial talk of tariffs and trade deals.

The only thing that can change Putin’s mind is Western strength. As long as Putin is confident of eventual victory, he will continue. But if the alternative to a peace deal is a potentially crushing defeat, he may reconsider. To achieve this change, Western leaders must demonstrate a degree of collective resolve that has often been absent over the past three years. They must sanction Russia to the max and arm Ukraine to the teeth. This will require considerable political will and good old-fashioned courage in Western capitals. Ukraine will do the rest.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Russia is extinguishing all traces of Ukrainian identity in occupied Ukraine

Kateryna Odarchenko — Tue, 27 May 2025 20:39:21 +0000

In recent months, US-led efforts to initiate a Russia-Ukraine peace process have focused primarily on the issue of potential Ukrainian territorial concessions. But as negotiating teams discuss technical details and draw lines on maps, almost no attention is being paid to the desperate plight of the millions of Ukrainians currently living under Russian occupation.

Throughout occupied Ukraine, the Russian authorities are seeking to consolidate their control by eradicating all traces of Ukrainian statehood and national identity while imposing a reign of terror on the civilian population. If these Russian occupation policies are allowed to pass unchallenged in the international arena, it will set a disastrous precedent for the use of force against civilians and the weaponization of national identity in other contested regions globally.

From the very first days of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, it was clear that Russia intended to entrench itself firmly in occupied regions of Ukraine. Russian troops often arrived armed with lists of local community leaders including elected officials, journalists, activists, religious figures, and military veterans. Those who refused to cooperate were likely to be detained before disappearing into a vast network of Russian prisons and camps.

Ukrainian detainees are being systematically subjected to torture and other human rights abuses, according to an international investigation led by the French group Forbidden Stories together with thirteen media outlets including Britain’s Guardian newspaper, the Washington Post, and Le Monde. While it is not possible to calculate exactly how many Ukrainian civilians have been abducted in the occupied regions, UN officials have concluded that the large scale and systematic nature of the disappearances qualifies as a crime against humanity.

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Those who remain in areas of Ukraine under Kremlin control face a regime of forced russification encompassing everything from language and the media to education and religion. Place names have been changed to reflect the new Russian realities, with the curriculum in local schools transformed in line with the Kremlin’s anti-Ukrainian imperial dogmas. Parents who attempt to shield their children from classroom indoctrination are being threatened with loss of custody.

Ukrainian residents in the occupied regions of the country have also come under increasing pressure from the Kremlin to accept Russian citizenship. Anyone who refuses to take a Russian passport risks losing access to a range of essential services including healthcare. They also face restrictions on property rights along with the ability to run a business and use banking services.

This passport campaign has intensified significantly in recent months, with Russian President Vladimir Putin issuing a decree announcing that Ukrainians living under Russian occupation have until September 2025 to accept Russian citizenship or face possible deportation from their own homes. Understandably, Moscow’s ruthless tactics are proving difficult to resist. Kremlin officials claim that by March 2025, Russian passports had been issued to approximately 3.5 million people in occupied Ukraine.

Moscow is accused of engaging in religious persecution throughout the occupied regions, with all Christian denominations other that the Kremlin-linked Russian Orthodox Church facing various degrees of restrictive measures and oppression. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry officials stated in spring 2025 that the Russian occupation authorities have killed dozens of clergy members over the past three years while damaging or destroying hundreds of churches.

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Russia has been careful to prevent information about conditions in occupied Ukraine from reaching the outside world. All independent media sources have been shut down throughout the occupied regions, and have been replaced by new Kremlin-controlled outlets. Individual journalists have frequently been among those targeted for oppressive measures including physical abuse and imprisonment.

One of the few reporters to shed light on the horrors unfolding in Russian-occupied Ukraine was Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who visited areas under occupation on multiple occasions before being captured by the Russian authorities in summer 2023. Roshchyna died after a year in Russian captivity. When her body was returned to Ukraine in early 2025, it showed signs of torture.

From a military standpoint, it may not currently be feasible to liberate all of the Ukrainian regions held by Moscow. Nevertheless, the crimes being committed by the Kremlin in occupied Ukraine are unprecedented in modern European history and cannot be ignored.

It is vital that the human rights of Ukrainians living under Russian occupation feature prominently in any peace process. This includes the rights of those currently being held in Russian jails. Ukraine’s Western partners must maintain or increase sanctions pressure, while also expanding support for Ukrainian civil society and raising awareness about Russia’s actions among international audiences.

Looking ahead, longer term investments are also needed to help document war crimes and support Ukrainian victims of the Russian occupation. Ultimately, the most meaningful response to Russia’s campaign against Ukrainian identity is to make sure Ukraine is in a position to not only survive but thrive as an independent European nation.

Kateryna Odarchenko is a partner at SIC Group Ukraine.

It is no surprise to see mounting unease in Western capitals over the US push to end the Russia-Ukraine War. Since Trump first initiated peace talks in February, Ukraine has agreed to an unconditional ceasefire and signaled its readiness to make major territorial concessions. In contrast, Russia has consistently rejected calls for a ceasefire while proposing new conditions of its own and creating various obstacles to any meaningful progress. At one point, Putin even claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lacked the legitimacy to sign off on a peace deal and suggested placing Ukraine under United Nations administration.

Recent diplomatic developments have further underlined Russia’s reluctance to end the war. When the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, and Poland delivered a ceasefire ultimatum to Putin in early May, the Russian ruler responded by calling for the first bilateral talks with Ukraine since spring 2022. However, Putin then chose not to attend the bilateral meeting in Istanbul that he himself had proposed, preferring instead to send a low-level delegation. This was widely interpreted as a “slap in the face” for Ukraine and the collective West.

Putin’s representatives during last week’s negotiations in Istanbul sought to emphasize Moscow’s unwillingness to compromise, calling on Kyiv to officially cede four entire provinces to Russia including a number of major Ukrainian cities that the Kremlin has so far been unable to seize militarily. If Ukraine refuses to do so, they warned, Russia will increase its demands to include six Ukrainian provinces. “We fought Sweden for twenty-one years. How long are you ready to fight?” the head of the Russian delegation reportedly commented, in reference to the eighteenth century Great Northern War. “Maybe some of those sitting here at this table will lose more of their loved ones. Russia is prepared to fight forever.”

While Putin rarely makes such thinly veiled threats, he continues to insist that any settlement must focus on eliminating what he refers to as the “root causes” of the war. This is generally understood to mean Ukraine’s international neutrality and disarmament, along with the reestablishment of Russia’s former imperial dominance in every sphere of Ukrainian public life, from language and education to national memory and religion. Any Ukrainian leader who agreed to such terms would be signing their country’s death sentence.

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Trump’s efforts to talk up the prospects of a negotiated peace and his attempts to entice Putin with commercial incentives suggest a fundamentally flawed understanding of Russia’s war aims in Ukraine. The US leader seems to sincerely believe that Putin can be persuaded to end his invasion by the promise of limited territorial gains and future economic prosperity. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

Putin is not fighting for Ukrainian land; he is fighting for Ukraine itself. He views the current war in the broadest of possible historical terms and sees the destruction of the Ukrainian state as a sacred mission that will define his entire reign and shape Russia’s future for decades to come. It is ludicrous to suggest that he could be swayed from this messianic vision by mundane talk of trade deals and sanctions relief.

Putin’s thirst for historical revenge can be traced back to his traumatic experience during the collapse of the Soviet Union. While Putin did not personally face the grinding poverty that millions of his compatriots endured in the 1990s, Russia’s national fall from grace nevertheless made a profound impression on him. Ever since, he has been haunted by fears of a further imperial collapse and driven by a determination to reverse the verdict of 1991. This has fueled his revanchist brand of Russian nationalism, and helps to explain his otherwise inexplicable obsession with Ukraine.

Throughout his reign, Putin has made no secret of his bitter resentment over the breakup of the USSR, which he has called “the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century” and “the disintegration of historical Russia.” Crucially, he views Ukraine as a central and indivisible part of this fabled “historical Russia.” Indeed, the Ukrainian capital Kyiv occupies pride of place in his imperial mythology as “the mother of all Russian cities.”

To Putin, the emergence of an independent Ukraine is a symbol of Russia’s post-Soviet humiliation and a potential catalyst for the next stage in his country’s retreat from empire. According to this twisted imperial logic, if a province as quintessentially Russian as Ukraine is allowed to break away and establish itself as a modern European democracy, the entire Russian Federation will be in danger of disintegrating. Likewise, Putin is convinced that if Ukraine can be returned to its rightful place within Greater Russia, the injustice of 1991 will be undone and Russia will resume its position among the world’s Great Powers.

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Putin has been attempting to force Ukraine back into the Kremlin orbit ever since the 2004 Orange Revolution, which he personally helped spark by clumsily intervening in Ukraine’s presidential election. The violence of these efforts has escalated in direct proportion to the strengthening of modern Ukraine’s own national identity. At first, Putin pursued his imperial goals in Ukraine through control of the country’s political, business, cultural, and religious elites. When this failed, he ordered the 2014 invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Once it became apparent that even this partial occupation of the country would not derail Ukraine’s national consolidation, Putin made the fateful decision to launch the full-scale invasion of February 2022.

The rising tide of Russian aggression against Ukraine has been accompanied by ever more extreme anti-Ukrainian rhetoric. For years, Putin has publicly insisted that Ukrainians are Russians (“one people”). On the eve of the current invasion, he published an entire essay denying Ukraine’s right to exist. Putin and other senior Kremlin officials have repeatedly labeled Ukraine as an artificial country built on stolen Russian land, a Nazi invention, and an intolerable “anti-Russia” created for the purpose of undermining Russia itself. Ukrainians who insist on their own national identity are typically portrayed as traitors undeserving of sympathy or mercy.

This dehumanizing propaganda has laid the ideological foundations for the crimes that are currently being committed by the occupying Russian army in Ukraine. Wherever the Kremlin is able to establish control, Ukrainian patriots and community leaders are routinely detained and incarcerated in a vast network of prisons and camps. While the number of victims remains unknown, UN officials have concluded that the large scale and systematic nature of the disappearances qualifies as a crime against humanity. Those who remain are subjected to a reign of terror and forced to accept Russian citizenship while submitting their children to indoctrination. Meanwhile, all traces of Ukrainian national identity, culture, and statehood are being ruthlessly erased. Many experts believe these actions qualify as genocide.

Putin is understandably happy to exploit the Trump administration’s enthusiasm for peace talks. This allows him to buy time, divide the West, and reduce the flow of weapons to Ukraine. But it is already abundantly clear that he has no real interest in ending his invasion. Indeed, he dare not stop. Any peace deal that secures Ukraine’s survival as an independent state would be viewed in Moscow as a major defeat. Rather than taking his place alongside Stalin, Peter the Great, and Ivan the Terrible as one of Russia’s greatest rulers, Putin would be remembered in Russian history as the man who lost Ukraine. He would rather fight on indefinitely than accept such a fate.

Trump deserves considerable credit for seizing the initiative and attempting to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. At the same time, his current approach is obviously not working. The time has now come to stop seeking compromises with the Kremlin and start speaking to Putin in the language of strength. This means tightening sanctions on Russia and targeting the many countries that continue to fuel Putin’s war machine. Above all, it means significantly increasing military aid to Kyiv and boosting Ukraine’s ability to defeat Russia on the battlefield. Putin has staked his entire reign on the destruction of Ukraine. He will not back down unless forced to do so. Peace will only come when Ukraine is too strong to be subjugated.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

The link to today’s war will be hammered home by the participation of numerous Russian military units accused of committing war crimes in Ukraine. Putin may also choose to surround himself with alleged war criminals from the ranks of his invading army, as he did last year. In his official address, it will be genuinely shocking if Putin does not attempt to draw direct parallels between the struggle against Nazi Germany and his own ongoing war in neighboring Ukraine.

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Even without the involvement of Russian troops fresh from the front lines of the current war, it would be virtually impossible to separate Putin’s parade from the Kremlin propaganda justifying the invasion of Ukraine. Ever since Russia first set out to subjugate Ukraine more than ten years ago, the Kremlin has portrayed its escalating invasion as a continuation of the World War II fight against Germany, with Ukrainians cast in the role of modern-day successors to the Nazis. Despite an almost complete lack of evidence to support these absurd and obscene claims, the “Nazi Ukraine” narrative continues to resonate among a Russia population that has been utterly saturated in an extreme form of World War II mythology that often borders on religious fanaticism.

From the very first years of his reign, Putin has sought to place the Soviet Union’s World War II experience at the very heart of modern Russia’s national identity. For the Kremlin, this emphasis on the immense suffering and ultimate triumph of the Soviet war effort has served as the ideal ideological antidote to the horrors of Stalinism and the humiliations of the Soviet collapse. It has proved a highly effective strategy, helping to rebuild Russia’s battered national pride and giving new meaning to the country’s twentieth century totalitarian trauma.

Putin’s war cult has centered around Victory Day, which has emerged over the past 25 years as by far the most important holiday on the Russian calendar. Many outside observers assume Victory Day always enjoyed similar prominence, but that is not the case. In fact, Stalin himself discouraged commemorations and made May 9 a working day in 1947. It remained so until the mid-1960s, when Victory Day was declared a public holiday. Nevertheless, there was none of the pomp and fanfare currently associated with the anniversary of the Nazi surrender. In the 46 years between the end of World War II and the fall of the Soviet Union, Moscow hosted a grand total of just four Victory Day parades.

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Putin’s cynical exploitation of World War II has also shaped Russian rhetoric on the international stage. This has been most immediately apparent in relation to Ukraine, which Kremlin propaganda has consistently portrayed as a Nazi state. Russia’s lurid claims have proved remarkably resistant to reality, with even the 2019 election of Jewish candidate Volodymyr Zelenskyy as president of Ukraine failing to force a change in tactics. Instead, Putin and other leading Kremlin officials have resorted to ever more ridiculous mental gymnastics as they have struggled to explain how a supposedly Nazi country could elect a Jewish leader. In one particularly notorious incident during the first months of the invasion, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed Zelenskyy’s Jewish roots by declaring that Adolf Hitler also had “Jewish blood.”

When Putin announced the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on the fateful morning of February 24, 2022, it came as no surprise that he identified “denazification” as one his two key war aims. The true meaning of this chilling phrase has since become abundantly clear; “denazification” is actually Kremlin code for “de-Ukrainianization,” and reflects Putin’s end goal of a Ukraine without Ukrainians.

In areas of Ukraine that have fallen under Kremlin control since the start of the invasion, the occupation authorities are systematically wiping out all traces of Ukrainian history, culture, and national identity. Thousands of children have been abducted and subjected to indoctrination in a bid to rob them of their Ukrainian nationality, while anyone seen as potentially loyal to Ukraine has been detained and dispatched to a vast network of prisons where torture is reportedly routine. Europe has not witnessed atrocities on this scale since World War II.

For decades, most European countries have marked the end of World War II with solemn memorial services while collectively vowing “never again.” Under Putin, Russians have come to embrace an altogether more menacing form of militant remembrance accompanied by the unofficial slogan “we can repeat it.”

Putin has already succeeded in weaponizing the memory of World War II to consolidate his grip on power, garner domestic support for his expansionist foreign policy, and dehumanize his enemies. He is now poised to use this week’s Victory Day parade in Moscow to legitimize the criminal invasion of Ukraine among his foreign guests and place it in the same context as the fight against Hitler. This is staggeringly disrespectful. It is also historically illiterate. If anyone today is guilty of echoing the crimes of the Nazis, it is Putin himself.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Latvia is acutely vulnerable to Kremlin-backed information influence activities due to historical ties and its large Russian-speaking minority. At the same time, Moscow’s manipulation of information is not just aimed at individual countries. There is also a broader underlying target—Western society—and Russia repurposes the methods it employs in Latvia elsewhere in the world.

To address this wider Russian threat, Latvia is sharing what it is learning with its allies and partners. It hosts NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, and it works with allies and partners to combat malign influence. Examples of this kind of cooperation are IREX (International Research and Exchanges Board), which conducts media training in the Baltics, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which investigates disinformation and debunks narratives, educates media consumers, and has had staff based in Latvia since 2017.

Russian information influence threats in Latvia’s media space

Zeroing in on manipulation campaigns in Latvia, Russia appears to have several goals: It wants to provoke and sustain disagreements and discord within both the transatlantic community and Latvian society. It wants to discredit Ukraine and its statehood. And it wants to polarize, disinform, and multiply doubts about local and Western politics and state institutions.

Russia has strengthened its information influence tactics over the years, transforming traditional tactics into complex campaigns that now perform across multiple domains simultaneously. Since the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s information-manipulation activities have increased in intensity and aggressiveness, using a varied spectrum of information resources to ensure the dissemination of its desired narratives.

Russian influence operations are well-funded and adapt quickly. Until 2022, Russian state TV and radio channels dominated Latvia’s media, outmatching local Russian-language content. After Latvia banned dozens of Russian state media outlets following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the propaganda efforts shifted online. Kremlin narratives now spread via social media platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Telegram, and they are often amplified by bots, trolls, and proxy websites. Common themes distributed on these channels include portraying Latvia’s government as illegitimate and “Russophobic,” rewriting history to romanticize Soviet times, and framing NATO and the European Union (EU) as enemies.

Cases of Russian disinformation in Latvia have risen despite efforts to control the spread of Kremlin-generated narratives. Moreover, the increasing use of artificial intelligence is allowing information manipulators to become more efficient and making detection of their efforts that much harder. In addition, the Latvian population in the border areas are still subjected to comprehensive Russian information manipulation activities via analogue broadcasting, which is available in certain regions. Approximately 20 percent of Latvia’s Russian-speaking viewers still access banned Russian state TV channels through virtual private networks (VPN). This poses a threat in the event of Russian kinetic maneuvers, as it could reduce resistance and resilience.

How Latvia is countering information influence

Latvia’s response has been to treat the information space as a critical front, viewing defense against lies and propaganda as vital as physical defense. Under its comprehensive defense strategy, the government has designated a resilient information environment as a shared responsibility of the state and society.

Public awareness and education are central to this effort. Media literacy training is built into school curricula and community programs. The government has fostered a “culture of readiness” through regular information campaigns and hands-on materials with tips to spot falsehoods. The state has also bolstered strategic communication resources and independent media. A dedicated strategic communications unit under the State Chancellery coordinates messaging across ministries and works with social-media companies to curb fake news. Quality journalism is supported by funding and policy. Authorities have also not hesitated to ban harmful outlets. Dozens of Russian propaganda channels were taken off-air or have been penalized. In 2021, Latvia became the first Baltic state to prosecute individuals for willfully spreading dangerous falsehoods, as per the Criminal Law, though there have been few convictions due to legal ambiguity around the definition of “fake news” in Article 231. There are ongoing attempts to reword parts of the law to mention false content or disinformation explicitly.

Latvia’s multi-layered approach extends beyond government. An ecosystem of nongovernmental organizations, academics, and volunteers (such as the “Baltic Elves”) actively debunk online falsehoods and track malign campaigns. Investigative journalists and fact-checkers expose disinformation trends, while initiatives such as the Baltic Centre for Media Excellence train reporters and promote high standards in journalism. At the same time, advanced monitoring tools help detect and attribute new tactics—from bot networks to deepfakes—in collaboration with NATO’s Strategic Communications Center and other partners. Crucially, Latvia strives to balance security with free expression. Maintaining an open and resilient information environment is considered crucial to national endurance in crises.

Latvia’s strategy has its limitations. Its main approach has been one of blocking malign narratives rather than proactively projecting its own strategic messages. The planned discontinuation of funding for Russian-language content on the public broadcast from next year contradicts the policy of recognizing the need to invest in alternatives to Russia’s information space, especially for minorities and older Russian-speakers less comfortable online. This could push approximately a fifth of Latvia’s Russian-speakers further into the Kremlin’s info-sphere. The experiment of welcoming Russian independent media has had mixed results. These outlets primarily focus on audiences in Russia and Latvian policymakers have placed few expectations on them for working within the Latvian information space. Thus, sustaining quality Russian-language media content remains a challenge. Furthermore, years of low financing for media, especially public media, in earlier years has been attributed as a root cause of the current information vulnerability.

The roles of partners and allies

Although the Baltic states are often considered to have the broadest experience within NATO in dealing with Russia’s influence campaigns and activities, the Kremlin has also targeted other allies with information manipulation. Latvia’s experience has contributed to broader transatlantic defense efforts on this challenge, generating support from the United States in setting up media-resilience programs and coordinating closely on counterpropaganda efforts. Latvia’s advocacy helped push NATO to treat disinformation as a core security issue. For example, NATO exercises in the Baltics now include simulated information-warfare scenarios, and the Alliance has fielded counterhybrid support teams that can deploy to allies under attack.

However, success depends heavily on continued support from major partners such as the United States. There are concerns that the United States could step back from efforts to counter foreign disinformation, which some US policymakers have framed as a “censorship industrial complex.” This could leave allies exposed and weaken collective resolve, particularly impacting European nations heavily targeted by Russian influence operations. There is also a risk that in the absence of firm US leadership, European counterparts may follow suit, potentially undermining the credibility and resilience of liberal democracies. Furthermore, Russia does not appear constricted by political, ethical, moral, or legal considerations, making its abilities more flexible, broad, and therefore harder to counter in any democratic society built on free-speech principles. Thus, sustaining international cooperation and collective defense is crucial.

The EU has also begun to recalibrate. In April of this year, the European Commission unveiled ProtectEU, a strategy aimed at reinforcing the bloc’s ability to anticipate, prevent, and respond to hybrid threats, acknowledging the blurred line between hybrid interference and warfare, particularly citing Russia’s campaigns. The Commission is proposing to expand the powers of EU law enforcement agencies to tackle such threats more effectively, signaling a more integrated approach. The EU Digital Service Act also helps regulate large platforms and the spread of disinformation. For ProtectEU to succeed, member states need coordination, integration, and the political will to overcome frictions around data sharing and sovereignty. If the United States pulls back from the continent, Europe has an opportunity to step forward, potentially becoming the vanguard in defending democratic values.

Where to start

To effectively counter information manipulation in this evolving threat landscape, policymakers in targeted countries should adopt a multi-pronged approach drawing on steps Latvia has taken.

Latvia’s experience demonstrates that even a small democracy can bolster its media space. By combining policy tools, public education, media support, active debunking, and international partnerships, Latvia built a layered defense. The fight is a marathon, not a sprint, requiring agility and continuous refinement of strategies. Unity is key. Collective resilience is achievable when nations pool knowledge and stand firm. Latvia’s example shows that with proactive measures, societies can strengthen their “information immune system” and fortify democracy against propaganda and lies.

One of the lessons from the Baltics, and especially the Latvian experience, is that strengthening the national counterdisinformation framework and building resilience are crucial. This involves treating the information domain as a formal element of national security with clear leadership allocation and integrated policies. Educating the public in media literacy creates a resilient society over time, resulting in a populace less likely to be duped by fake news and minimizing the impact of influence activities. Regularly reviewing and updating laws and regulations helps address modern manipulation techniques. Explicitly defining disinformation-related offenses empowers law enforcement to act in egregious cases without imposing broad censorship. Individual countries can also empower media regulators to take action against channels facilitating foreign influence.

Countries looking to foster a robust and independent information ecosystem need to support reliable information sources and actively counter falsehoods. Governments and citizens need to support independent and local media, including minority-language content, which provides credible alternatives and acts as a bulwark against external propaganda, filling gaps hostile actors might exploit. Governments can partner with private companies (social media platforms, for example) and media organizations to improve resilience and facilitate the flagging and removal of malicious content. Countries can also leverage nongovernmental organizations to allow for faster debunking within communities, often with greater trust. Using innovative forms of communication like art, stand-up, and gamification can reach audiences unresponsive to traditional media.

Working with allies multiplies the effectiveness of what individual states are doing. Actively participating in international coalitions and working toward common standards, such as joint incident response protocols, ensures a unified response and prevents adversaries from exploiting gaps or moving operations next door.

Even as this work progresses, important challenges persist. Democratic countries must counter influence within political, ethical, moral, and legal constraints, while adversaries often operate without such limits. The main task is avoiding the restriction of public debate while still countering malign influence. As with other Western democracies, Latvia’s main strategy has been blocking disinformation, but proactive narrative projection is lacking. Relying so much on reactive policies gives Russia and other sources of information manipulation a large advantage.

Elīna Vrobļevska is a researcher at the Center for East European policy studies and lecturer and researcher at Rīga Stradiņš University. Her primary research focuses on Russian foreign policy and narrative construction in the public sphere.

Beniamino Irdi is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Previously, Irdi served within the Italian government in various capacities related to foreign affairs and security policy, including as a special adviser to Italy’s minister of foreign affairs.

This article is part of a series in partnership between the Atlantic Council and the Centre for East European Policy Studies.

The post What’s the best way to deal with Russian information manipulation? Latvia has answers. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Putin confirms North Korean troops are fighting for Russia against Ukraine

Olivia Yanchik — Thu, 01 May 2025 20:43:55 +0000

More than six months after the story was first reported, Russian President Vladimir Putin has officially confirmed the presence of North Korean troops in Russia’s war against Ukraine. “We will always honor the Korean heroes who gave their lives for Russia, for our common freedom, on an equal basis with their Russian brothers in arms,” he commented on April 27.

Putin’s announcement was mirrored by similar official confirmation from the North Korean side. Pyongyang praised the “heroic feats” of North Korean troops fighting alongside the Russian army in a front page article published by the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper last weekend.

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Claims of North Korean troops participating in Russia’s war against Ukraine first began to circulate in October 2024. However, the Kremlin initially denied the North Korean presence, with Russian officials remaining tight-lipped on the subject until late April.

Moscow and Pyongyang appear to have coordinated their recent statements, indicating that both partners felt the time was now right to confirm the involvement of North Korean forces in Russia’s war. Official confirmation came as Putin proclaimed the defeat of Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region, where the bulk of North Korean soldiers are believed to have been deployed.

Moscow’s decision to confirm the presence of North Korean soldiers after months of denials could prove damaging to the Kremlin’s credibility at a time when questions are already being asked over Russia’s commitment to US-led peace talks to end the war in Ukraine. In recent days, US President Donald Trump has signaled his mounting frustration with Putin’s apparent stalling tactics, and has suggested that the Russian leader may be “tapping” him along.

The appearance of North Korean troops alongside their Russian counterparts on the front lines of the war against Ukraine represents the latest stage in a deepening military alliance between the two countries. North Korea has been supplying Russia with significant quantities of military aid since the early stages of the war in 2022. Deliveries have included millions of artillery shells as well as ballistic missiles, which have been used to devastating effect against Ukrainian cities.

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North Korea’s direct participation in the war against Ukraine is a watershed moment in modern European history. It is also widely seen an indication of the Russian army’s mounting recruitment issues.

While the Kremlin still has vast untapped reserves of available manpower to call upon, Putin is thought to be deeply reluctant to conduct a new mobilization due to fears of a possible domestic backlash inside Russia. This is making it increasingly challenging to replenish the depleted ranks of his invading army amid continued heavy losses.

For much of the war, Putin has relied on a combination of recruits drawn from Russia’s prison population and volunteer soldiers attracted by generous financial incentives that are typically many times higher than average Russian salaries. However, with the Russian army now reportedly averaging over a thousand casualties per day, it is becoming more difficult to find sufficient manpower to maintain the momentum of offensive operations in Ukraine.

So far, the North Korean contingent has seen action inside the Russian Federation itself amid fierce battles to push Ukrainian forces out of Russia’s Kursk region. However, with their participation now publicly confirmed by both Moscow and Pyongyang, officials in Kyiv are voicing concerns that North Korean troops could soon be redeployed to Ukrainian territory. This would represent a dangerous international escalation with unpredictable consequences for the wider region.

North Korea has now firmly established itself as one of the Kremlin’s most important allies in the invasion of Ukraine. Pyongyang’s involvement began with the supply of artillery shells and has expanded to include ballistic missiles and large numbers of combat troops. This comprehensive military support is enabling Russia to sustain the current war effort.

Ukraine’s allies are still searching for a suitable reaction to the expanding North Korean military presence on Europe’s eastern frontier. Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has called for the strengthening of sanctions against Russia and North Korea, while also warning that the Koreans are gaining valuable experience of modern warfare in Ukraine that could have grave implications for international security. In the absence of an overwhelming Western response, it seems safe to assume that North Korea’s involvement in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will continue to deepen.

Olivia Yanchik is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Many have already noted the cynicism of Putin’s proposal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted by reaffirming his commitment to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire while accusing the Kremlin of trying to “manipulate the world” and “deceive the United States” with empty ceasefire stunts. “We value human lives, not parades,” he stated. Officials in Brussels were similarly critical of the Kremlin. “Russia could stop the killing and the bombing at any time, so there’s absolutely no need to wait until May 8,” commented European Commission spokesperson Anita Hipper. Meanwhile, the Trump White House responded by emphasizing the need for a “permanent ceasefire.”

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Putin’s shamelessly self-serving call for a Victory Day ceasefire says much about his opportunistic approach toward the faltering peace process initiated by the United States in early 2025. Much like the 30-hour lull in fighting initiated by Putin over the Easter holiday, the three-day truce proposed this week is far too short to have any meaningful impact on negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. However, it does allow the Russian ruler to pose as peacemaker while continuing his invasion.

Putin’s headline-grabbing truces are also an important part of his stalling tactics as he seeks to drag out peace talks indefinitely without exhausting US President Donald Trump’s patience or closing the door on a potential broader thaw in bilateral relations with the United States. It is no coincidence that both of Putin’s recent ceasefire announcements have come in the immediate aftermath of critical comments from Trump indicating that the US leader is growing tired of Russian excuses. Indeed, news of the Victory Day truce emerged just hours after Trump had questioned Russia’s willingness to end the war and commented that he feared Putin was “tapping me along.”

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While Putin engages in dubious peace gestures, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has recently provided a far more realistic view of the Kremlin’s war aims and continued commitment to the conquest Ukraine. In an interview with Brazilian newspaper O Globo that was published on the same day as Putin’s Victory Day ceasefire announcement, Lavrov listed Russia’s conditions ahead of possible negotiations with Ukraine. These included international recognition of Russia’s right to five partially occupied Ukrainian provinces, the removal of all sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014, guarantees over Ukrainian neutrality, and the reduction of Ukraine’s army to a skeleton force.

Crucially, Moscow also insists on Ukraine’s “denazification,” which is recognized as Kremlin code for the comprehensive “de-Ukrainianization” of the country and the reestablishment of Russian dominance in all spheres of public life. If implemented, these punishing Russian terms would not lead to a sustainable peace. Instead, they would serve as an act of capitulation, setting the stage for the final destruction of Ukraine as a state and as a nation.

All this is a very long way from the Trump administration’s frequent assertions that both sides must be willing to compromise if they wish to achieve a viable settlement. While Ukraine has repeatedly backed calls for an unconditional ceasefire and has accepted the need for temporary territorial concessions, Russia continues to pursue maximalist goals that no Ukrainian government could possibly accept.

During the first hundred days of his presidency, Trump has sought to advance the peace process by pressuring Ukraine while offering Russia a wide range of incentives to engage. It should now be abundantly clear that this uneven approach has backfired. Far from persuading Putin to offer concessions of his own, Trump’s appeasement policies have convinced the Kremlin to escalate its demands further. We have now reached the point where Putin believes he can personally pause the war to host a military parade on Red Square before resuming his invasion three days later. This absurd situation makes a complete mockery of Trump’s peace efforts and threatens to leave him looking foolish.

If Trump is serious about bringing Russia to the negotiating table, he must first demonstrate a readiness to impose crippling costs on the Kremlin. The current US strategy toward Russia can be characterized as all carrots and no sticks. This is useless against a regime that only understands the language of strength and regards any attempts at compromise as signs of weakness. It also gravely underestimates the high stakes underpinning Russia’s invasion. Putin views the war in Ukraine as an historic mission to reverse the imperial collapse of 1991 and return Russia to its rightful place as a global superpower. He will not abandon this mission unless the alternative is defeat.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Putin’s cynical Easter ceasefire stunt backfires as Zelenskyy calls his bluff

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 22:18:47 +0000

Russian President Vladimir Putin caught everyone by surprise during the recent Easter holidays by unexpectedly announcing a 30-hour ceasefire to briefly pause the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The proposed lull in fighting was timed to cover traditional Orthodox festivities on Easter Sunday, with the apparent aim of reviving Putin’s own increasingly dubious peacemaker credentials while shifting the blame for the lack of progress in US-led peace talks firmly onto Ukraine.

The hasty announcement of an Easter ceasefire came after weeks of mounting frustration in Washington DC over Russia’s refusal to join Ukraine in backing American calls for an unconditional ceasefire. With US President Donald Trump complaining about Moscow’s stalling tactics and suggesting that he may soon abandon negotiations altogether, Putin appears to have decided that a change in narrative was urgently required. His solution was to unilaterally declare a temporary truce on what is one of the holiest days of the year for Russians and Ukrainians.

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If the goal of Putin’s Easter ceasefire gambit was to position Ukraine as the main obstacle to peace, it appears to have backfired. Far from rejecting Russia’s last minute ceasefire proposal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy quickly agreed. “If Russia is now suddenly ready to truly engage in a format of full and unconditional silence, Ukraine will act accordingly, mirroring Russia’s actions,” he commented in a social media post outlining Ukraine’s position.

Crucially, Zelenskyy also called Putin’s bluff by issuing his own counter-proposal to significantly extend the ceasefire. “If a complete ceasefire truly takes hold, Ukraine proposes extending it beyond Easter Day. This will reveal Russia’s true intentions, because 30 hours is enough to make headlines, but not for genuine confidence-building measures. Thirty days could give peace a chance,” the Ukrainian leader commented.

Zelenskyy has since expanded on his call for a more comprehensive ceasefire agreement. On Easter Day, he said Russia and Ukraine should both implement a month-long pause on all missile and drone attacks against civilian infrastructure. Putin has not yet provided a definite answer to Zelenskyy’s proposal, but he has suggested that he may be open to bilateral talks with Ukraine on the issue. It is far from certain whether this dialogue will lead to any meaningful action, but the Ukrainian leader has already succeeded in demonstrating his constructive approach to the peace process.

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These recent developments come at a key moment in the Trump administration’s efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine and bring Europe’s largest invasion since World War II to an end. Ukraine agreed to a US proposal for an unconditional ceasefire on March 11, but Russia has yet to do likewise. Instead, Moscow has sought to secure multiple further concessions and has been accused of attempting to drag out talks indefinitely.

Putin’s efforts to obstruct negotiations have placed Trump in an uncomfortable position and have led to widespread suggestions that the US leader is being played by the Kremlin dictator. Matters first came to a head in late March when Putin publicly questioned Zelenskyy’s political legitimacy and said Ukraine should be placed under temporary United Nations administration in order to elect what the Russian ruler called a more “competent” government. Trump responded by saying he was “pissed off” and “very angry” about Putin’s comments.

Throughout April, the chorus of international criticism over Russia’s bad faith approach to negotiations has grown steadily louder, as have demands for Trump to respond accordingly. The US leader is now evidently running out of patience and is threatening to walk away from peace talks altogether. With American officials demanding progress in a matter of days rather than weeks, we should soon have a better picture of the prospects for a breakthrough toward a sustainable settlement. For now, there is little indication that Russia has any interest in ending the invasion of Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin’s surprise Easter ceasefire announcement was clearly a cynical stunt, but it did inadvertently serve an important purpose by underlining the simple fact that Russia can end the war whenever it chooses. With faltering peace talks now approaching a critical juncture, the significance of this basic point cannot be overstated. As many people have observed over the past three years, if Russia stops fighting, there will be no more war. If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no more Ukraine.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Exposing Pravda: How pro-Kremlin forces are poisoning AI models and rewriting Wikipedia

Valentin Châtelet — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 17:34:35 +0000

Over the last three years of its war in Ukraine, Russia has expanded, developed, and tailored an influence campaign targeting much of the world, spreading its content in Wikipedia articles and in popular artificial intelligence (AI) tools. As election campaigns in Romania and Moldova took place, or as political discussions between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy unfolded, a network of inauthentic pro-Russian portals ramped up its activity, laundering content from sanctioned news outlets and aligning global information sources with the Kremlin narrative machine.

A Russian network gone global

The Pravda network is a collection of fraudulent news portals targeting more than eighty countries and regions throughout the world, launched by Russia in 2014. In 2024, the French disinformation watchdog Viginum reported on the operation, identifying the malicious activity of a Crimea-based IT business, findings that the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) later confirmed, which showed direct Russian involvement with the network.

The Pravda network acts as an information laundromat, amplifying and saturating the news cycle with tropes emanating from Russian news outlets and Kremlin-aligned Telegram channels. During the 2024 “super-election year,” the network created websites specifically targeting NATO, as well as Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, and other world leaders and politicians.

AI and Wikipedia at the forefront

This strategy, in a likely attempt to evade global sanctions on Russian news outlets, is now poisoning AI tools and Wikipedia. By posing as authoritative sources on Wikipedia and reliable news outlets cited by popular large language models (LLMs), Russian tropes are rewriting the story of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The direct consequence is the exposure of Western audiences to content containing pro-Kremlin, anti-Ukrainian, and anti-Western messaging when using AI chatbots that rely on LLMs trained on material such as Wikipedia.

What’s next?

These are some of the findings from an investigation by the DFRLab, in partnership with Finnish company CheckFirst. Our research unveiled a long-running Russian online influence operation that has taken root across the global internet. Together, we released a deep-dive series of investigations. To assess, map, and expose the influence of the Pravda network, we have released an interactive dashboard and map, with free-to-use datasets unveiling how countries are being targeted.

As AI chatbots continue to advance, Russia is infecting them with Kremlin-manipulated content tailored to influence the global internet, distorting the public’s understanding of facts and ability to make well-informed decisions. This operation opens the door to questions regarding the transparency of the training of AI models and the moderation of content emanating from known Russian-manipulated sources that have persistently divided the West on its support for Ukraine.

Valentin Châtelet is a research associate for security at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, based in Belgium.

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The Pravda Network (Partial)

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US funding cuts create openings for Russian disinformation in Ukraine

Muhammad Tahir — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 21:14:02 +0000

Cut the cameras. Slash the salaries. Cancel the investigations. That’s the reality facing Ukraine’s independent media, which serves as a vital firewall against Kremlin disinformation, as the US freezes nearly all support.

Since January 2025, the United States has quietly suspended 90 percent of its development funding for Ukraine, including the grants that kept most of the country’s independent newsrooms alive. Whether channeled directly through USAID or via partners, that funding has disappeared. The move to cut financial support comes as Moscow is intensifying its disinformation efforts.

In Mykolaiv, a strategic port city in Ukraine’s south, NikVesti is on the brink. With 4.5 million visits in 2024, it has been a cornerstone of independent local wartime reporting. Now, after losing a fifth of its budget through the loss of US funding, the newsroom is running on fumes. “We’re burning through our final reserves,” co-founder Oleh Dereniuha commented. “If funding doesn’t return, it will be difficult to make it past April.”

Further south in Kherson, Vgoru, one of only three independent outlets still operating in the region, has lost 80% of its US funding. Freelancers are gone and investigative projects have been shelved. “No one else is reporting from here,” said editor Ilona Korotitsyna. “Without us, they’ll only hear Russia.”

In Sumy, a northeastern Ukrainian city facing relentless Russian bombardment from across the nearby border, independent outlet Cykr is barely hanging on. “Sixty percent of our budget came from USAID,” said editor Dmytro Tyschenko. The site has enough funding to last a month. “After that,” he warned, “we’re bracing for a flood of unchecked Russian propaganda to fill the vacuum.”

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Since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022, the US has delivered more than $37 billion in development aid to Ukraine. With the domestic Ukrainian media market in a state of wartime collapse, the vast majority of outlets have survived almost entirely on international grants, most of them from the US.

Outlets like NikVesti, Vgoru, and Cykr are among the 90 percent of independent Ukrainian media that relied on this funding to report the facts under extraordinary conditions of bombardment, blackouts, and occupation. Beyond exposing Russian disinformation, journalists working for these outlets have investigated corruption, documented Russian strikes and their aftermath, and held the Ukrainian authorities to account, often at considerable personal risk.

There are now mounting concerns that Russia will seek to exploit emerging gaps in Ukraine’s information space created by US funding cuts. With far fewer credible sources able to report on local news stories across Ukraine, Kremlin disinformation will become much harder to counter.

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A recent disinformation operation in the Sumy region offered a glimpse of the kinds of tactics Moscow is likely to employ. In early April, Russian-linked Telegram channels began promoting fake messaging attributed to the Sumy City Council’s Health Department claiming that a mysterious disease had broken out among Ukrainian soldiers. They warned civilians to avoid contact with troops returning from the front.

This is a typical Russian disinformation operation, with fake news wrapped in official-looking packaging and seeded online in order to sow panic. The goal isn’t just to mislead, however. Russia also aims to undermine faith in the information space altogether. And with credible independent Ukrainian media outlets unable to operate, that task becomes significantly easier.

Allowing Ukraine’s independent media to fall silent in the middle of a war would have serious strategic consequences. Without independent journalism, Ukraine not only loses its first line of defense against Russian disinformation. It also loses the transparency and accountability that are vital for the future of the country’s democracy.

The Ukrainian outlets and journalists hit by recent US funding cuts are not just waiting for a bailout. They are launching membership programs, pitching donors, trimming operations, and testing new formats. Some are turning to diaspora networks. Others are banking on European funding. So far, these efforts are proving slow and insufficient.

“We’re doing everything we can. In a region where the local business market is nonexistent, we’re reaching out to European partners, applying for every grant we can find,” said Vgoru’s Korotitsyna. “But EU funding is slow, and the competition is fierce. We need support now, not six months down the line, or we won’t be around to receive it.”

Muhammad Tahir is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He has reported extensively across the CIS, South Asia, and the Middle East.

Russia’s endless ceasefire excuses are proof that Putin does not want peace

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 20:08:45 +0000

Almost one month since Ukraine agreed to a US-led unconditional ceasefire, Russia has this week come up with yet another excuse to avoid following suit. Speaking in Moscow on April 7, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that while Russian President Vladimir Putin backs calls for a ceasefire, questions remain over the Ukrainian government’s alleged inability to control “a number of extremist and nationalist units that simply do not obey Kyiv.”

This latest excuse is a variation of the tired old trope about “Ukrainian Nazis” that has been used exhaustively by the Kremlin since 2014 to legitimize Russia’s escalating aggression against Ukraine. For more than a decade, Putin’s propagandists have been depicting Ukraine as a hotbed of far-right extremism as part of a disinformation campaign designed to dehumanize ordinary Ukrainians and prepare the ground for the wholesale erasure of Ukrainian national identity. It therefore comes as no surprise that Moscow is now citing this phantom fascist threat in order to rebuff calls for a ceasefire.

In reality, Ukrainian public support for far-right political parties is among the lowest in Europe. After years of failure at the ballot box, Ukraine’s nationalist parties formed a coalition ahead of the country’s last prewar parliamentary elections in 2019, but could only collectively muster 2.16 percent of the vote. That same year, Ukrainians also elected Russian-speaking Jewish comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the country’s president. Zelenskyy’s Jewish heritage has helped highlight the absurdity of Russia’s “Nazi” narrative, forcing Kremlin officials to engage in increasingly ridiculous mental gymnastics. Most notoriously, during a 2022 interview with Italian television, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sought to defend Moscow’s baseless claims by declaring that Adolf Hitler “also had Jewish blood.”

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In addition to invoking imaginary Ukrainian Nazis, the Kremlin has also sought to stall negotiations over a possible ceasefire by questioning the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government. Ukraine was scheduled to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in 2024, but the Ukrainian Constitution stipulates that elections cannot take place during martial law. Despite this constitutional barrier and numerous logistical obstacles to wartime elections in Ukraine, officials in Moscow have repeatedly called for a new national ballot while arguing that President Zelenskyy lacks the authority to conclude a peace deal.

Most recently, Putin went one step further by suggesting that Ukraine should be placed under some kind of external administration, with United Nations officials overseeing elections. This obvious attempt to derail peace talks proved too much even for US President Donald Trump, who reportedly responded by stating that he was “pissed off” with Putin. Trump then threatened to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil exports if the Kremlin dictator refuses to make a deal ending the war in Ukraine.

Putin’s inflexible negotiating position further underlines his intention to continue the invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv has made a number of major concessions in recent months, including expressing its readiness to accept the temporary occupation of Ukrainian regions currently under Kremlin control. Rather than offering compromises of his own, Putin has insisted on the surrender of additional Ukrainian land that the invading Russian army has so far been unable to seize. He also demands an end to all foreign aid and the dramatic reduction of the Ukrainian army to a mere skeleton force. This would leave Ukraine partitioned, isolated, disarmed, and defenseless against further Russian aggression. No Ukrainian government could expect to remain in power for long if they accepted Putin’s maximalist terms. Indeed, it is unlikely that Ukraine itself would survive such a suicidal settlement.

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By now, it should be abundantly clear that Putin does not want peace. For more than two months, the Trump administration has tried to entice Moscow by pressuring Ukraine into concessions while offering the prospect of lucrative future cooperation between Russia and the United States, only to be met with endless excuses and stalling tactics. Although Putin remains reluctant to openly reject Trump’s peace overtures, his goal evidently remains the complete subjugation of Ukraine and the effective end of Ukrainian statehood.

Many Western leaders are now publicly criticizing Putin’s refusal to engage in meaningful peace talks. “It is urgent that Russia stops with the pretenses and stalling tactics and accepts an unconditional ceasefire,” French President Emmanuel Macron commented recently. The Trump White House is also apparently now finally running out of patience. While US officials have been keen to talk up progress in talks with their Russian counterparts, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated last week that Trump was not “going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations” with Moscow.

Trump’s initial attempt to broker a Ukraine peace deal by offering Putin an attractive off-ramp has failed. He must now decide whether he is prepared to employ sticks as well as carrots. At present, Putin has little interest in limited territorial concessions and remains committed to the destruction of Ukraine as a state and as a nation. Crucially, he has been encouraged by Trump’s reluctance to maintain US support for the Ukrainian war effort. This has strengthened the Russian ruler’s conviction that he can ultimately outlast the West in Ukraine.

In order to force a change of mood in Moscow, the United States must increase the costs of the invasion while undermining Russian hopes of military victory. This can be achieved by tougher sanctions measures targeting the Russian energy sector along with increased military aid that will allow the Ukrainian army to regain the battlefield initiative. Anything less will be interpreted by the Kremlin as a tacit green light to continue the invasion. If Trump is serious about persuading Putin to seek peace, he must first convince him that the alternative is defeat.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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The enforced adoption of Russian citizenship is just one of the many tools being employed by the Kremlin to systematically erase all traces of Ukrainian statehood and national identity throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine. Wherever Russian troops advance, local populations are subjected to mass arrests designed to root out any potential dissenters. Those targeted typically include elected officials, military veterans, religious leaders, civil society activists, teachers, journalists, and patriots. Thousands have been abducted in this manner since 2022 and remain unaccounted for, with many thought to be languishing in a network of prisons in Russian-occupied Ukraine and Russia itself.

Those who remain are subjected to terror tactics in conditions that Britain’s The Economist has described as a “totalitarian hell.” All public symbols of Ukrainian statehood and cultural identity are being systematically dismantled. The Ukrainian language is suppressed, while any Christian denominations other than the Russian Orthodox Church face persecution or worse.

Moscow’s efforts to erase Ukrainian identity begin in the classroom. In schools throughout the occupied regions, Ukrainian children are being taught a new Kremlin-approved curriculum that praises Russian imperialism and glorifies the ongoing invasion of Ukraine while demonizing the entire concept of a separate and independent Ukrainian state. Any parents who dare to resist risk losing custody of their children.

The Kremlin is also accused of kidnapping tens of thousands of Ukrainian children from occupied regions and deporting them to Russia, where they are subjected to ideological indoctrination to rob them of their Ukrainian roots and impose an imperial Russian identity. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Putin due his personal involvement in these mass abductions of Ukrainian children.

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The actions of the Russian occupation authorities are entirely in line with the vicious anti-Ukrainian rhetoric coming from Putin himself and other officials in Moscow. Putin has long insisted that Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”). Six months prior to the full-scale invasion, he took the highly unusual step of publishing a lengthy history essay that read like a declaration of war against Ukrainian statehood.

As Russian troops prepared to invade in February 2022, Putin sought to justify this act of international aggression by describing Ukraine as “an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.” He has since compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great, and has declared occupied Ukrainian territory to be “Russian forever.”

The Russian establishment has enthusiastically followed Putin’s lead. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has stated that “the existence of Ukraine is mortally dangerous for Ukrainians,” while top Putin aide Nikolai Patrushev recently suggested Ukraine may soon “cease to exist.” Meanwhile, poisonous anti-Ukrainian language has become so commonplace in the Kremlin-controlled Russian media that UN investigators believe it may constitute “incitement to genocide.”

This week’s presidential decree threatening to deport Ukrainians from their own homes is the latest reminder that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is no mere border dispute or attempt to address legitimate security concerns. It is a colonial war of the most brutal kind that aims to destroy Ukraine as a state and as a nation. In the heart of Europe and before the watching world, Putin is openly pursuing policies that almost certainly meet the definition of ethnic cleansing and may qualify as genocide.

The grim reality of Russia’s invasion should weigh heavily on the US officials who are currently charged with drawing lines on maps and attempting to create a realistic framework for a possible ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine. While diplomatic compromises and temporary territorial concessions are now clearly inevitable, any future peace deal must also take into account the fate of the millions of Ukrainians who are likely to be left under Russian occupation.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Silencing Voice of America will only strengthen autocrats around the world

Mercedes Sapuppo — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 18:53:47 +0000

United States President Donald Trump has moved to shut down a series of prominent US-funded international media outlets including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as he continues efforts to cut government spending and reshape US foreign policy. In a March 15 statement, the White House said the decision “will ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.”

Critics fear the move will strengthen the position of authoritarian regimes around the world while leaving millions of people in closed societies without access to independent information. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty CEO Steve Capus called the step “a massive gift to America’s enemies.” He warned that the shutdown would make the United States weaker and would be celebrated by “the Iranian Ayatollahs, Chinese communist leaders, and autocrats in Moscow and Minsk.”

Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza was one of numerous activists from the front lines of the fight against resurgent authoritarianism to voice their alarm over the closures. For many people living in authoritarian societies, outlets like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have provided an objective and trustworthy alternative to what is often a heavily censored domestic information space. Kara-Murza suggested the demise of these outlets would be toasted in Moscow and beyond. “One more champagne bottle opened in the Kremlin,” he quipped.

As expected, the shutdown of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America was enthusiastically welcomed on prime time Russian state TV. Margarita Simonyan, who heads Russia’s flagship international media platform RT and state-owned media group Rossiya Segodnya, called the news an “awesome decision by Trump.” Meanwhile, fellow Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov took time out from fantasizing about a nuclear attack on Britain to mock the more than one thousand journalists now facing an uncertain future. “You are nasty, lying, deplorable traitors to the motherland. Go and die in a ditch,” he commented.

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For decades, authoritarian regimes ranging from Nazi Germany to Communist China have griped against the influence of US-funded independent media outlets, and have adopted various measures to try and block them. Voice of America was first set up in 1942 at the height of World War II, while Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was established in 1950 during the early years of the Cold War to provide uncensored information to people living behind the Iron Curtain.

Initially focused on radio broadcasts, these outlets and their numerous affiliates have evolved over time to become multimedia platforms reaching hundreds of millions of people every week. This has never been a purely altruistic endeavor; advocates maintain that providing access to objective information abroad strengthens the US position internationally.

Until their dramatic recent shutdown, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and many other regional pro-democracy platforms such as Radio Free Asia were all overseen by the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). While often the subject of debate in the United States due to allegations of political bias and doubts over their continued effectiveness, recent studies have indicated that they remained widely recognized by international audiences as important sources of unfiltered information.

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Despite being funded by the US government, the network adhered to a code of journalistic integrity and objectivity similar to the charters governing the work of other state-funded media such as the BBC. This independence from governmental editorial oversight had on occasion led to issues with United States officials. Some within the Trump White House attempted to justify the decision to cut funding by claiming that these state-funded broadcasters had become overly politicized and were no longer representative of the values the new administration wished to project.

The international impact of the USAGM stable of media outlets is perhaps most immediately apparent in the number of journalists jailed or otherwise targeted by authoritarian regimes for their professional activities. At present, ten journalists and staff members from USAGM-affiliated outlets are being held in countries including Belarus, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Myanmar. Following news of the shutdowns, Ukrainian journalist Stanislav Aseyev posted that while imprisoned by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, he was subjected to electric shock torture specifically because he had previously worked for Radio Liberty.

The timing of Trump’s decision to shut down the United States international broadcasting network could hardly be worse. In today’s increasingly multipolar world, the information space is an critical front in the escalating global struggle between rival democratic and authoritarian camps. This has long been recognized by China and Russia, with both countries committing vast annual budgets to support sophisticated international media activities in a variety of guises. The US was previously seen as the world leader in this soft power contest, but that is suddenly no longer the case. Generations of autocratic regimes never did manage to silence Voice of America, but the Trump administration has now done so themselves.

Mercedes Sapuppo is assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Putin backs Trump’s partial ceasefire but insists Ukraine must be disarmed

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 21:10:05 +0000

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted a US proposal for a partial ceasefire in the war against Ukraine following a lengthy phone call with US President Donald Trump. If Ukraine now agrees to the terms of the partial ceasefire, both countries will pause attacks on energy infrastructure for a thirty-day period. During the high stakes call, Putin also committed to begin negotiations over a possible maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea.

The White House readout following the Trump-Putin call was fairly upbeat, but in truth the outcomes fell far short of expectations. One week earlier, Ukraine had unconditionally backed a United States initiative for a complete thirty-day ceasefire in a move that was widely hailed as a breakthrough toward a potential peace deal. So far, Russia has refused to reciprocate. Instead, Putin has sought to insert a series of conditions that indicate an unwillingness to compromise on the key issues driving the Russia invasion of Ukraine.

Today’s telephone conversation appears to have been no different. While Putin offered some minor concessions, he also made clear that he has not abandoned his maximalist goal of subjugating Ukraine. Crucially, the Kremlin statement following the call stressed that Russia’s key condition for any progress toward peace is “the complete cessation of foreign military aid and sharing intelligence with Kyiv.” In other words, Putin continues to insist that peace will only be possible once Ukraine has been disarmed and left at his mercy. It does not require much imagination to anticipate the kind of peace Putin has in mind.

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Putin insistence on an end to all Western military support for Ukraine is not new. Since the very first days of the invasion, he has been warning the West not to arm Ukraine. He has also consistently identified the complete demilitarization of Ukraine as one of his primary war aims.

During failed peace talks in spring 2022, Russian negotiators demanded an approximately 95 percent reduction in the size of Ukraine’s army, which was to become a skeleton force of just fifty thousand troops. For the past three years, the Kremlin has repeated these calls for a drastic reduction in the size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including severe restrictions on the categories of weapons Ukraine can possess.

Russian officials have also frequently pressed Ukraine’s Western allies to end all military assistance, while boasting to domestic audiences that this would soon force Kyiv to capitulate. Speaking in October 2023 at the annual Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Putin predicted that Ukraine would have “a week left to live” if the country’s Western partners ended weapons deliveries. “Imagine if supplies stopped tomorrow. They would have a week left to live until ammunition was exhausted,” he stated.

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The Kremlin has been similarly insistent on the need to isolate Ukraine internationally and deprive the country of potential allies. In addition to a ban on all Western arms supplies, Moscow demands that Ukraine must voluntarily abandon its NATO ambitions and accept enforced neutrality. Putin claims this is necessary as NATO expansion poses a military threat to Russia. However, he himself said Russia had “no problem” when neighboring Finland announced plans to join the alliance in 2022.

Most recently, Russia has firmly rejected the idea of deploying peacekeepers from NATO member countries to Ukraine in order to monitor any future ceasefire agreement. This rejection is particularly revealing, given the fact that the same NATO troops are already present in six countries bordering Russia without sparking World War III. It would certainly seem that Putin’s real problem is with Ukraine rather than NATO.

Putin told Trump today that he wants a lasting peace, but his negotiating position suggests otherwise. The Kremlin dictator’s preferred peace terms envision a disarmed and defenseless Ukraine with virtually no army of its own and no chance of receiving any meaningful military aid from the international community. If he achieves this goal, it is surely only a matter of time before Putin renews his invasion and completes the conquest of Ukraine.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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The Trump White House is not the first to misjudge the extent of Putin’s imperial ambitions in Ukraine. On multiple occasions, the preceding Biden administration declared Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “strategic failure” while pointing to the extremely high cost paid by the Kremlin in terms of military casualties and economic damage. This practical assessment of the invasion assumes that Putin is guided and constrained by the same logic as his Western contemporaries. In reality, however, he is not.

While democratic leaders must worry about approval ratings and economic indicators, Putin has removed virtually all possible sources of domestic opposition and is free to focus on securing his place in Russian history. Since the early years of his reign, he has made no secret of the fact that he views the collapse of the USSR as a tragedy, and regards the post-Cold War world order as an injustice. Crucially, Ukraine has come to embody both of these grievances. Putin firmly believes he cannot hope to achieve his historic mission of reversing the verdict of 1991 and reviving the Russian Empire without first extinguishing Ukrainian independence.

Putin’s obsession with Ukraine has become increasingly apparent over the past two decades as his campaign to subjugate the country has escalated from political interference to military intervention. In 2004, his efforts to rig Ukraine’s presidential election and install a Kremlin-friendly candidate backfired disastrously and helped spark the Orange Revolution. Ten years later, he responded to another Ukrainian pro-democracy revolution by seizing Crimea and invading eastern Ukraine.

In the years following the onset of Russia’s military aggression, it gradually became more and more obvious that the limited invasion of 2014 was not delivering the desired outcome of a pro-Russian Ukraine. On the contrary, Russia’s attack was only strengthening Ukraine’s commitment to turn westward and pursue a Euro-Atlantic future. Rather than acknowledging the counter-productive consequences of his military campaign, Putin chose to raise the stakes even further by launching the largest European invasion since World War II.

Over the past three years, Putin has become increasingly open about his intention to erase Ukraine altogether. He has declared occupied Ukrainian regions to be “Russian forever,” and has compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian ruler Peter the Great. Vicious anti-Ukrainian rhetoric has become so normalized in the Russian state media that UN officials believe it may constitute “incitement to genocide.” Meanwhile, throughout areas of Ukraine under Kremlin control, Russia is systematically suppressing all traces of Ukrainian statehood and national identity.

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Despite the horror and trauma of the Russian invasion, Ukrainians have so far refused to back down. This defiance is a personal humiliation for Putin. It directly undermines his carefully crafted strongman persona, and makes a complete mockery of his insistence that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people.” Rather than securing his place among the most celebrated rulers in Russian history, Putin is now at risk of being remembered as the man who lost Ukraine.

Losing Ukraine is Putin’s worst nightmare. Ever since witnessing the collapse of Soviet power while serving as a young KGB officer in East Germany, he has been haunted by visions of people power movements overthrowing empires. This helps explain his increasingly violent opposition to the robust and often unruly democratic culture that has taken root in post-Soviet Ukraine. Since the 2004 Orange Revolution, he has viewed the consolidation of Ukrainian democracy as an existential threat to his own authoritarian regime and a potential catalyst for the next stage in Russia’s retreat from empire.

Putin knows that the invasion of Ukraine will define his entire reign and decide the future fate of the Russian Federation. While he may be prepared to discuss a strategic pause in hostilities if ceasefire terms can be made to favor Moscow, he will never accept the existence of a separate and genuinely independent Ukrainian state on Russia’s border. This does not mean that current US-led peace efforts are entirely futile, but it is vital to recognize that freezing the conflict along the current front lines will not be enough to end the war.

For decades, Western leaders have made the mistake of viewing Putin through the prism of their own political pragmatism, while underestimating the importance of his revisionist imperial ideology. After three years of total war in the heart of Europe, there is no longer any excuse for such wishful thinking. Putin has bet everything on the destruction of Ukraine and is confident he will be judged favorably by the tribunal of history. Unless he is deterred by the overwhelming might of the collective West, he will continue to wage war against Ukraine until he achieves his chilling goal.

No serious military analyst would argue that Ukraine poses a credible security threat to Russia itself. Likewise, no Ukrainian politician or public figure has ever harbored any territorial ambitions against their country’s far larger and wealthier neighbor. On the contrary, the sole purpose of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is to defend the country against Russian attack. The Kremlin’s emphasis on disarming Ukraine should therefore be seen as a massive red flag for the Trump White House and the wider international community that signals Putin’s determination to complete his conquest and extinguish Ukrainian statehood altogether.

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There are worrying signs that this is not yet fully understood in Western capitals. Instead, US President Donald Trump and senior members of his administration have recently begun shifting responsibility for the war away from Russia and echoing the Kremlin’s own longstanding efforts to blame the invasion on NATO expansion. Predictably, Russian officials including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have welcomed this dramatic change in the US position regarding the causes of the war. However, Russia’s whole NATO narrative suffers from a number of obvious flaws that should spark skepticism among even the most credulous consumers of Kremlin propaganda.

According to Putin, Ukraine’s deepening ties with NATO forced him to launch the full-scale invasion of February 2022. In reality, Ukraine’s prospects of joining the alliance were virtually nonexistent at the time, and had not significantly improved since Kyiv was first fobbed off with platitudes at a landmark NATO summit way back in 2008. Even the Russian seizure of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014 failed to produce any change of heart among alliance members, with key NATO countries including the United States and Germany openly expressing their opposition to Ukrainian accession. Indeed, on the eve of the full-scale invasion, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz assured Putin that Ukrainian NATO membership was out of the question for at least the next 30 years. This makes it difficult to accept Moscow’s claims that Ukraine’s NATO aspirations represented some kind of immediate danger to Russia.

There are also good reasons to question whether the Kremlin genuinely views NATO as a threat to Russian national security. Thanks to founding member Norway, the alliance has shared a border with Russia ever since its establishment in 1949. More recently, the accession of Poland and the Baltic states at the turn of the millennium dramatically expanded Russia’s shared border with NATO and placed the alliance a few hundred kilometers away from Moscow and Saint Petersburg. This close proximity to Russia’s two biggest cities did not lead to any discernible rise in border tensions.

The most revealing evidence of Russia’s true attitude toward NATO came in 2022 when Finland and Sweden reacted to the invasion of Ukraine by ending decades of neutrality and announcing plans to join the alliance. Putin responded to this landmark decision by declaring that Russia had “no problem” with the accession of the two Nordic nations, despite the fact that Finnish membership would more than double Russia’s border with NATO, while Swedish membership would turn the Baltic Sea into a NATO lake. Putin has since underlined his indifference to this expanded NATO presence on his doorstep by withdrawing most Russian troops from the Finnish frontier and leaving this supposedly vulnerable border zone largely undefended.

So far, nobody has been able to adequately explain the glaring inconsistency in Putin’s logic. He appears to be unfazed by the presence of NATO troops along the Russian border in Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. And yet at the same time, he expects us to believe that the faint prospect of Ukraine joining the alliance at some point in the distant future is sufficiently alarming to justify the largest European invasion since World War II. Militarily, this makes no sense. The only reasonable conclusion is that Putin’s objections relate specifically to Ukraine and not to NATO in general. He knows perfectly well that the alliance poses no security threat to Russia itself, but does not want to risk a growing NATO presence that might prevent him from achieving his expansionist objective of subjugating Ukraine.

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While Putin moans to foreign leaders about the inequities of NATO expansion, when speaking to domestic audiences he is typically far more candid about the imperial ambitions that shaped his decision to invade Ukraine. For much of his reign, Putin has insisted that Ukrainians are really Russians (“one people”), and has repeatedly accused modern Ukraine of being a invented nation occupying historically Russian lands. On the eve of the full-scale invasion, he published a rambling 5,000-word history essay that many likened to a declaration of war against Ukrainian statehood. During the first summer of the war, he compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great.

Putin’s frequent denials of Ukraine’s right to exist have set the tone throughout Russian society. Poisonous anti-Ukrainian rhetoric has become so commonplace in the Kremlin-controlled Russian media that UN investigators believe it may constitute “incitement to genocide.” Meanwhile, senior Kremlin officials have sought to demonstrate their loyalty to Putin by echoing his vicious attacks on Ukraine. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has declared that “the existence of Ukraine is mortally dangerous for Ukrainians,” while top Putin aide Nikolai Patrushev recently suggested Ukraine may soon “cease to exist.” These are not the words of rational politicians addressing legitimate national security concerns.

This genocidal rhetoric is being more than matched by the actions of the Russian army in Ukraine. Wherever the Kremlin has been able to establish control, Russian troops have systematically detained local officials, military veterans, journalists, religious leaders, civic activists, Ukrainian patriots, and anyone else deemed to be a potential threat. Thousands have disappeared into a vast network of prisons amid a climate of fear that has been described by Britain’s The Economist as a “totalitarian hell.” Many more, including thousands of children, have been subjected to forced deportation and sent to Russia. Those who remain are being pressured to accept Russian citizenship, while all reminders of Ukrainian statehood, culture, and national identity are being methodically removed. Needless to say, anyone who dares speak the Ukrainian language risks severe punishment.

These horrors make a complete mockery of attempts to appease the Russians with limited territorial concessions. US negotiators need to recognize that Putin is not fighting for land. He views the current invasion in far broader terms as an historic mission to erase Ukraine from the map of Europe. In Putin’s chilling worldview, extinguishing Ukrainian statehood is a vital step toward the reversal of the Soviet collapse and the revival of the Russian Empire. He has pursued this messianic vision with increasing violence ever since Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, and is now closer than ever to realizing his goal.

This is why peace negotiations with Russia must focus primarily on establishing long-term security guarantees that are sufficiently credible to convince the Kremlin. Anything less will be viewed in Moscow as yet more proof of Western weakness and interpreted as a tacit invitation to go further. After all, that has been the pattern ever since the Russian invasion first began in 2014. Putin’s campaign to destroy Ukraine has been gradually unfolding in plain sight for over a decade and already ranks among the worst crimes of the twenty-first century. If Western leaders choose to ignore this and push ahead with a bad peace while leaving Ukraine without the support and security it needs to survive, they will be complicit in all that follows.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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Issue brief: A NATO strategy for countering Russia

Ian Brzezinski, Ryan Arick — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:56:35 +0000

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Key takeaways

Russia is the most direct and significant threat to the security of NATO member states—and since Moscow’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 this threat continues to grow. It now encompasses the war in Ukraine, the militarization of the Arctic, hybrid warfare, and violations of arms control treaties.
While NATO holds a significant advantage over Russia in military and economic power, an effective and unified strategy is needed to counter Russia’s aggression and fully harness the Alliance’s collective capabilities.
To effectively counter Russia, NATO must defeat Russia in Ukraine, deter Russian aggression against NATO allies and partners, contain Russian influence beyond its borders, and degrade Russia’s ability and will to accomplish its revisionist agenda. That will require, among other actions, a significant increase of support and commitment to Ukraine’s defense against Russia, and a more robust Alliance force posture including the modernization of its nuclear deterrent, the permanent stationing of brigade elements along NATO’s eastern frontier and increased defense industrial capacities.

Russia is “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security.” So states the NATO Strategic Concept promulgated at the Alliance’s Madrid Summit in June 2022, just four months after Russia’s massive escalation of its invasion of Ukraine.¹ The concept and NATO declarations not only underscore the illegality and brutality of that ongoing attack but also highlight Moscow’s use of nuclear and conventional military aggression, annexation, subversion, sabotage, and other forms of coercion and violence against NATO allies and partners.

Ever since its invasion of Georgia in 2008, Russia’s aggression against the Alliance has steadily intensified. This led NATO leaders at their 2024 Washington Summit to task the development of “recommendations on NATO’s strategic approach to Russia, taking into account the changing security environment.”² The Alliance’s “Russia strategy” is due for consideration at NATO’s next summit at The Hague in June 2025.³ This issue brief reviews Moscow’s actions affecting the security of the Euro-Atlantic area and presents the enduring realities, objectives, and actions that should constitute the core of an effective NATO strategy to counter the threat posed by Russia.

Intensified and globalized Russian aggression

Russia’s objectives go far beyond the subordination of Ukraine. Moscow seeks to reassert hegemony and control over the space of the former Soviet Union, diminish the power of the democratic community of nations, and delegitimize the international rules-based order. Moscow aims to subjugate its neighbors and to weaken—if not shatter—NATO, the key impediment to its European ambitions.

Toward these ends and under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin, Russia:

Has illegally occupied Moldova’s Transnistria region since the early 1990s.
Invaded Georgia in 2008, has continued to occupy portions of that country, and recently increased its influence, if not control, over the nation’s governance.
Invaded Ukraine in 2014 and significantly escalated this ongoing war in February 2022.
Militarized the Arctic by increasing its military presence in the region, including through reopening Soviet-era bases and building new facilities to buttress Russian territorial claims over Arctic waters.
Leveraged trade and energy embargoes and other forms of economic pressure to intimidate and coerce its European neighbors.
Conducts an escalating campaign of active measures short of war against NATO allies and partners, including information warfare, election interference, sabotage, assassination, weaponized migration, cyberattacks, GPS jamming, and other actions.
Expanded its conventional and nuclear military capabilities, an effort that was part of President Putin’s preparations to invade Ukraine.
Violated, suspended, and abrogated international arms control agreements, including New START Treaty, the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Open Skies Agreement, and others.⁴

Enduring realities

A NATO strategy to counter Russia’s aggression is long overdue. Its absence cedes to Russia the initiative, leaving the Alliance too often in a reactive, if not indecisive and passive, posture in this relationship. An effective strategy requires recognition of nine enduring realities:

First, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a failure of deterrence. The weakness of the Alliance’s response to Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine, NATO’s failure to respond forcefully to Russia’s months long mobilization of forces along Ukraine’s frontiers in 2021, and NATO’s acquiescence to Putin’s exercise of nuclear coercion emboldened and facilitated Putin’s actions against Ukraine. As a result, the credibility of the Alliance’s commitment to defend resolutely its interests and values has been damaged.

A destroyed Russian tank remains on the side of the road near the frontline town of Kreminna, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Luhansk region, Ukraine March 24, 2023. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura

Second, Russia is at war, not just against Ukraine. It is also at war against NATO. The Alliance can no longer approach the relationship as one of competition or confrontation considering the military invasions, active measures, and other forms of violence and coercion Russia has undertaken against NATO allies and partners.⁵ As former US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun has written, “Quite simply, Putin has declared war on the West, but the West does not yet understand we are at war with Russia.”⁶ By failing to recognize this reality, NATO has ceded escalation dominance to Russia as evidenced by its limiting of support to Ukraine and its inaction against repeated Russian aggression and provocations. The Alliance must recognize and act upon the reality that Moscow has pushed the NATO-Russia relationship into the state of war.

Third, NATO faces long-term conflict with Russia. Putin cannot be expected to abandon his ambitions, even if defeated in Ukraine. Ever since Putin’s speech before the February 2007 Munich Security Conference in which he railed against the international order and NATO’s expanding membership, Russia’s campaign to subjugate its neighbors and to intimidate, divide, and weaken the Alliance has been unceasing and relentless. Nor can the Alliance assume that Putin’s successor will significantly diverge from the objectives and policies that drive Russia’s actions today. Peaceful coexistence with Russia is not attainable in the short to medium term and will be difficult to attain in the long term.

Quite simply, Putin has declared war on the West, but the West does not yet understand we are at war with Russia.

—Stephen Biegun, former US Deputy Secretary of State

Fourth, Russia will continue efforts to increase the size and capability of its armed forces. While Russian land forces have suffered significant losses in its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has reconstituted that force faster than expected. Russia’s land forces were estimated to be 15 percent larger in April 2024 than when Russia attacked Kyiv in February 2022.⁷ Earlier this year, Russia announced new ambitious plans to restructure and expand its ground forces to 1.5 million active personnel.⁸ Moreover, the Russian air force and navy have not been significantly degraded by the war against Ukraine. Russia’s air force has only lost some 10 percent of its aircraft. While Russian naval ships have been destroyed in the Black Sea, Russian naval activity worldwide has increased.⁹ Similarly, Russian nuclear forces have been unaffected by the conflict in Ukraine. Russia retains the world’s largest arsenal of deployed and nondeployed nuclear weapons and continues to develop new models of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBM), hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, nuclear-powered cruise missiles, nuclear-powered subsurface drones, antisatellite weapons, and orbital space weapons.¹⁰ With some 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) being directed to its military, Moscow is investing to increase its defense-industrial and research and development capacities.¹¹ Russia’s industrial base produces more ammunition than that produced by all NATO members and is fielding new high-tech weapons systems, such as the nuclear-capable multiple warhead IRBM Oreshnik Russia, which was demonstrated in combat against Ukraine last November.¹² In April 2024, NATO SACEUR General Christopher Cavoli testified to the US Congress that:

“Russia is on track to command the largest military on the continent and a defense industrial complex capable of generating substantial amounts of ammunition and material in support of large-scale combat operations. Regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Russia will be larger, more lethal and angrier with the West than when it invaded.”¹³

Fifth, Moscow’s aggressive actions short of war will continue and escalate. Putin has yet to face a response from the Alliance that will dissuade him from further exercising information warfare, cyber warfare, energy and trade embargoes, assassination, GPS jamming, sabotage, fomenting separatist movements, and other forms of hybrid warfare. These actions are intended to intimidate governments; weaken the credibility of the Alliance’s security guarantee; create and exacerbate internal divisions; and divide allies, among other objectives. Left unchecked, they threaten to undermine the Alliance’s ability to attain consensus necessary to take decisive action against Russia.

Sixth, Moscow’s exercise of nuclear coercion will continue as a key element of Russia’s strategy and should be expected to intensify. Threats of nuclear warfare are a key element of Putin’s strategy to preclude NATO and its members from providing Ukraine support that would enable it to decisively defeat Russia’s invasion. This repeated exercise of nuclear coercion includes verbal threats from President Putin and other senior Russian officials; the launching of nuclear capable ICBMs; the use of a nuclear capable IRBM against Ukraine, the first use of such a system in a conflict; nuclear weapons exercises; and the deployment of nuclear weapons to Belarus, according to both Russia and Belarus.¹⁴ NATO allies have repeatedly rewarded this coercion by expressing fear of nuclear war; declaring that NATO forces will not enter Ukraine; restricting NATO’s role in assisting Ukraine; limiting the flow of weapons to Ukraine; and restricting their use against legitimate military targets in Russia. Rewarding nuclear coercion encourages its repeated exercise and escalation. It risks leading Russia to conclude it has attained escalation dominance. A key challenge for NATO going forward will be to demonstrate that Russia’s threats of nuclear strikes are counterproductive, and the Alliance cannot be deterred by nuclear coercion.

NATO leaders stand together for a photo at NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington in July 2024. REUTERS/Yves Herman

Seventh, Moscow is conducting a global campaign of aggression to weaken the democratic community of nations and the rules-based international order. Over the last two decades, Russia has exercised its military, informational, and economic assets to generate anti-Western sentiment across the globe, including in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific region. This has included military support to authoritarian, anti-Western regimes well beyond Europe, including Venezuela, Syria, and Mali. The most concerning element of Russia’s global campaign is the partnerships it has operationalized with China, Iran, and North Korea. Russia’s “no limits partnership” with China enables Putin to mitigate the impacts of Western sanctions on his war economy. Both Iran and North Korea have provided Russia with weapons and ammunition, and North Korean soldiers have joined Russia’s fight against Ukraine. In return, Russia has supplied missile and nuclear technologies, oil and gas, and economic support to these nations that enables them to stoke violence across the Middle East, threaten the Korean Peninsula, and drive forward Beijing’s hegemonic ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region.

Eighth, an effective Russia strategy will require a coordinated leveraging of all the instruments of power available through the Alliance, its member states, and its key partners, including the European Union. This includes the application of diplomatic, economic, ideological, informational, and other elements of power—none of which are the Alliance’s primary capacity, military power—that can be marshaled through its members states and multinational institutions, such as the European Union, where the Alliance and its member states have influence and authority.

Ninth, NATO significantly overmatches Russia in military and economic power.
NATO Headquarters estimates the combined GDP of Alliance member states to be $54 trillion, more than twenty-five times Russia’s estimated GDP of more than $2 trillion.¹⁵ The combined defense budget of NATO members amounts to approximately $1.5 trillion,¹⁶ more than ten times that of Russia’s publicly projected defense budget of $128 billion for 2025.¹⁷ This imbalance of power favoring the Alliance will be enduring and makes the execution of an effective Russia strategy not a matter of capacity, but one of strategic vision and political will.

Core objectives

To counter the direct and significant threat posed by Moscow, a NATO strategy for Russia should be structured around four core objectives:¹⁸

Defeat Russia in Ukraine: NATO must defeat Russia’s war against Ukraine. This is its most urgent priority. Failure to do so—and failure includes the conflict’s perpetuation—increases the risk of a wider war in Europe and will encourage other adversaries around the world to pursue their revisionist and hegemonic ambitions. Russia’s decisive defeat in Ukraine is essential to return stability to Europe and to reinforce the credibility of the Alliance’s deterrent posture.
Deter aggression by Russia: A key Alliance priority must be the effective deterrence of Russia aggression against the Alliance. A robust conventional and nuclear posture that deters Russian military aggression is far less costly than an active war. Deterrence must also be more effectively exercised against Russia’s actions short of war. Failure to deter aggression in this domain can undermine confidence in the Alliance and increase the risk of war.
Contain Russia’s influence and control: The Alliance must actively contain Russia’s efforts to assert influence and control beyond its borders. The Alliance must assist Europe’s non-NATO neighbors in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and in Central Asia to strengthen their defenses and resilience to Russian pressure. NATO and NATO allies should also work to counter and roll back Russia’s influence and engagement around the globe.
Degrade Russia’s capabilities and determination: A core objective for the Alliance should include weakening Russia’s capacity and will to pursue its hegemonic ambitions. Denying Russia access to international markets would further degrade its economy, including its defense-industrial capacity. Active engagement of the Russian public and other key stakeholders should aim to generate opposition to Putin and the Kremlin’s international aggression.

Achievement of these objectives would compel the Kremlin to conclude that its revanchist ambitions, including the diminishment or destruction of NATO, are unachievable and self-damaging. It would diminish Russia’s will and ability to continue aggression in Europe and weaken the impact of Russia’s partnerships, including with China, Iran, and North Korea. In addition, achieving these objectives would return a modicum of stability to Europe that in the long-term would enhance the prospects for NATO’s peaceful coexistence with Russia.

Regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Russia will be larger, more lethal, and angrier with the West than when it invaded.

—Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe

Recommended actions

A NATO strategy to defeat, deter, contain, and degrade Russian aggression and influence should effectuate the following actions by the Alliance, its member states, and partners:

Defeat Russia in Ukraine and accelerate Ukraine’s accession into the NATO alliance Defeating Russian aggression against Ukraine requires its own strategy, which should feature five key elements: adopting Ukraine’s war objectives, including total territorial reconstitution (i.e., the Alliance must never recognize Russian sovereignty over the territories it illegally seized from Ukraine); maximizing the flow of military equipment and supplies to Ukraine, free of restrictions on their use against legitimate military targets in Russia; imposing severe economic sanctions on Russia; deploying aggressive information operations to generate opposition in Russia against Putin’s aggression; and presenting a clear, accelerated path for Ukraine to NATO membership. NATO membership, and the security guarantee it provides, would add real risk and complexity to Russian military planning. NATO membership for Ukraine is the only way to convince the Kremlin that Ukraine cannot be subject to Russian hegemony and would provide security conditions needed for Ukraine’s rapid reconstruction and economic integration into Europe.
Fulfill and operationalize NATO’s regional defense plans. To establish a credible and effective deterrent against Russian military aggression, NATO allies must:
- Build and deploy the requisite national forces. Military plans are no more than visions in the absence of required capabilities. NATO’s European and Canadian allies need to generate more forces, with requisite firepower, mobility, and enabling capacities. In short, given European allies’ obligations under NATO’s new regional defense plans, they must act with urgency.
- Strengthen transatlantic defense industrial capacity. High intensity warfare, as seen in Ukraine, consumes massive amounts of weapons stocks, much of which have to be in a near constant state of modernization to match the technological adaptations of the adversary. Today, the Alliance has struggled (and often failed) to match the defense-industrial capacity of Russia and its partners. NATO’s defense industrial base must expand its production capacities and its ability to rapidly develop, update, and field weapons systems.
- Increase allied defense spending to the equivalent of 5 percent of GDP. To facilitate the aforementioned requirements and to address emerging challenges beyond Europe that could simultaneously challenge the transatlantic community, NATO allies need to increase the agreed floor of defense spending from 2 percent to 5 percent and fulfill that new commitment with immediacy. NATO members cannot allow themselves to be forced to choose between defending against Russia and another geopolitical challenge beyond Europe.

Terminate the NATO Russia Founding Act (NRFA). Russia has repeatedly and blatantly violated the principles and commitments laid out in the Founding Act. Russia’s actions include having invaded Ukraine both in 2014 and in 2022, using nuclear coercion and escalatory rhetoric to pressue the Alliance, and deploying nonstrategic nuclear weapons to Belarus, as both Russia and Belarus have affirmed. Consequently, NATO should formally render the NRFA defunct, including the Alliance’s commitments to:
- Adhere to the “three nuclear no’s” that NATO member states “have no intention, no plan and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new members, nor any need to change any aspect of NATO’s nuclear posture or nuclear policy – and do not foresee any future need to do so.”¹⁹
- Abstain from permanently stationing “substantial combat forces” in Central and Eastern Europe.²⁰

Update NATO’s nuclear force posture. In response to Russia’s modernization of its nuclear arsenal, exercise of nuclear coercion, and adjustments to its nuclear strategy that lowers the threshold for first use of nuclear weapons, the Alliance must update its own nuclear posture. The objectives should be to provide NATO with a broader and more credible spectrum of nuclear weapons options. An updated force posture would improve NATO’s ability to manage, if not dominate, the ladder of conflict escalation, complicate Russian military planning, and thereby weaken Moscow’s confidence in its own military posture and its strategy of nuclear “escalation to de escalate.” Toward these ends, the Alliance should:
- Increase the spectrum of NATO’s nuclear capabilities. This should include a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) and a ground-launched variant. The breadth and number of NATO nuclear weapons exercises, such as the yearly Steadfast Noon, should be expanded and further integrated with exercises of conventional forces.
- Expand the number of members participating in the Alliance’s nuclear sharing agreements. Doing so will expand the tactical options available to NATO and underscore more forcefully Alliance unity behind its nuclear posture.
- Broaden the number and locations of infrastructure capable of hosting the Alliance’s nuclear posture. The Alliance’s nuclear posture still relies solely on Cold War legacy infrastructure in Western Europe. Given the threat posed by Russia, NATO should establish facilities capable of handling nuclear weapons and dual capable systems, including nuclear weapons storage sites, in NATO member states along its eastern frontier.

Reinforce NATO’s eastern flank. Russia’s assault on Ukraine and its growing provocations against NATO member states and partners underscore the need to further reinforce the Alliance’s eastern frontier. To date, NATO’s deployments along its eastern flank amount to more of a trip-wire force rather than one designed for a strategy of defense by denial. To give greater credibility to the Alliance’s pledge not to “cede one inch” when considering a potential attack by Russia, NATO should:
- Establish a more robust permanent military presence along the Alliance’s eastern frontier. NATO is expanding its eight multinational battlegroups deployed to Central and Eastern Europe. But each of these deployments should be further upgraded to full brigades that are permanently stationed there. These elements should feature robust enabling capacities, particularly air and missile defenses and long-range fires. If the United States is expected to sustain a presence of 100,000 troops in Europe, the least Western Europe and Canada can do is to forward station some 32,000 troops combined in Central and Eastern Europe.
- Conduct large-scale, concentrated exercises on NATO’s eastern flank. The Alliance has commendably reanimated its emphasis on large-scale joint military exercises. However, those exercises have yet to be concentrated on NATO’s eastern flank. Doing so would enhance readiness, reassure the Alliance’s Central and Eastern European member states, and demonstrate resolve and preparedness in the face of Russian aggression.
- Upgrade the Alliance’s air defense and ballistic missile defense systems to more robustly address Russian threats. In its attacks on Ukraine, Russia has demonstrated with brutality its emphasis on missile and long-range drone strikes against military and civilian targets. As part of its efforts to upgrade its air and missile defense capacities, NATO should direct the European Phased Adaptive Approach to address threats from Russia.²¹

A Grad-P Partizan single rocket launcher is fired towards Russian troops by servicemen of the 110th Territorial Defence Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, on a frontline in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine January 21, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer

Expand the NATO SACEUR’s authority to order deployments and conduct operations along NATO’s eastern frontier. The Alliance’s regional defense plans are said to provide SACEUR with greater authority to activate and deploy NATO forces before crisis and conflict situations. Due to the aggressiveness of Russia’s ambitions, NATO should consider further expanding those authorities as they relate to the deployment and missions of forces along the Alliance’s eastern frontier. The actions of a deterrent force can be even more important than the magnitude of their presence.
Augment the Alliance’s posture in the Arctic. Russia has heavily militarized the Arctic, upgraded the status and capability of its Northern Fleet, and deepened its military cooperation with China in the region while the Kremlin continues to assert Arctic territorial claims that conflict with those of NATO allies. While NATO has been increasing the tempo of its Arctic operations and improving its Arctic capabilities, Russia continues to pose a significant threat in the region and possibly outmatches the Alliance in the High North. To further reinforce deterrence against Russian aggression in the Arctic, the Alliance should:
- Develop a comprehensive NATO strategy to defend its interests in the High North. Such a document would underscore the Alliance’s commitment to the region and help foster allied investments in infrastructure, capabilities, and training needed to defend and deter Russian threats in the High North.
- Establish a NATO Arctic Command and Joint Force. The Arctic poses a unique set of geographic and climatic challenges requiring tailored operational capabilities. A command and air-ground-naval force focused specifically on the High North would provide the Alliance a dedicated and tailored deterrent to counter Russian aggression in the Arctic.²²

Bolster deterrence against Russian actions short of war by strengthening resilience and through more assertive and punitive counteractions. NATO and NATO member states’ failure to respond robustly to Russia’s hybrid warfare—whether it is information warfare, cyberattacks, sabotage, assassinations, or other forms of aggression — has resulted in Russia’s intensification and escalation of these actions. The transatlantic community must strengthen its resilience against such attacks but also take stronger punitive measures against Russia if it is to persuade Russia to cease these attacks. While much of what needs to be done falls beyond the remit of NATO’s military capabilities, greater consideration should be given to how military assets can be leveraged to gather intelligence about Russian activity and provide a military dimension to the transatlantic community’s response to such provocations. For example, when a Russian ship fired a warning shot directed at a commercial Norwegian fishing boat within Norway’s exclusive economic zone or when Russia pulled out Estonian navigation buoys from the Narva River,²³ an immediate show of force from NATO could have been an appropriate response.
Strengthen the deterrence and resilience capacities of non-NATO nations in Europe and Russia’s periphery. Recent elections in Georgia, Moldova, and Romania reflect the intensity of Russia’s determination to claw back control and influence over the space of the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. A key priority of a Russia strategy should be to strengthen efforts by the Alliance, its member states, and key institutional partners, such as the European Union, to reinforce the resilience and defense capabilities of non-NATO nations in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. NATO’s programs, such as the Defence and Related Security Capacity Building Initiative, warrant even greater emphasis and resources, particularly in those regions.
Intensify Russia’s economic and diplomatic isolation. The current set of measures taken against Moscow in these realms have failed to sufficiently degrade Russia’s war economy and its ability to sustain its invasion of Ukraine and provocations elsewhere in the world. A key priority for NATO and its member states should be to significantly escalate economic sanctions, including the exercise of secondary sanctions to eliminate Moscow’s ability to generate international revenue from energy exports and attain critical technologies needed by its defense industrial sector.
Increase efforts to generate internal Russian opposition to the Kremlin’s revanchist objectives and greater support for democratic principles and governance. Russia has undertaken aggressive campaigns to influence the politics of NATO allies and partners. In the recent elections of Moldova and Romania, Russian intervention nearly effectuated regime change. For too long, the transatlantic community has remained on the defensive in this realm. NATO and its member states need to shift to the offensive and weaponize the power of truth to illuminate the brutal realities of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the corruption of Russian officials, and other realties of Russian governance. NATO allies must more actively support Russian stakeholders—particularly civil society—that are more aligned with transatlantic values. This is critical to degrading the political will of the Russian state to continue its aggressions.
Modulate dialogue with Russia, limiting it to what is operationally necessary. The Alliance should formally disband the NATO-Russia Council—which last met in 2022—until Moscow has demonstrated genuine commitment to a constructive relationship. Nonetheless, the Alliance should establish and/or maintain lines of communication between the NATO secretary general and the Kremlin, as well as between Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) and the Russian General Staff, to enable crisis management and provide transparency needed for military stability. This would not preclude NATO allies from dialogues with Russia deemed necessary, for example, to assist Ukraine or pursue arms control measures.

The bottom line

As noted, NATO possesses an overmatching capacity to defeat Russia in Ukraine, deter Russian aggression, contain Russian influence beyond its borders, and degrade Russia’s ability and will to accomplish its revisionist agenda. Today, there is no better time to achieve these objectives by fully marshaling the Alliance’s assets and potential. Moscow cannot undertake an all-out military attack on NATO without risking the viability of Russia’s armed forces and thus its regime. The accomplishment of these objectives would provide stability to Europe’s eastern frontier and establish the best foundation for an eventual relationship with Moscow that is minimally confrontational, if not cooperative and constructive. However, this will take political will and resources. Russia today is determined to prevail in Ukraine, expand its military capabilities, and further leverage its partners, particularly China, Iran, and North Korea, to defeat the community of democracies and, particularly, the Alliance. Russia already envisions itself as being at war with NATO.

About the authors

Fellow

Ian Brzezinski

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Can Russia be held accountable for the crime of aggression in Ukraine?

Kristina Hook — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 22:13:26 +0000

In early February, a coalition of 37 countries made an important step forward on promises to hold Russian leaders accountable for the invasion of Ukraine. This coalition, which includes every member state of the European Union, announced “significant progress” toward the establishment of a special tribunal for the international crime of aggression against Ukraine.

In a statement, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stressed the historical significance of the moment. “When Russia chose to roll its tanks over Ukraine’s borders, breaking the UN Charter, it committed one of the gravest violations: The Crime of Aggression. Now, justice is coming,” she commented.

Russia stands accused of committing a vast array of crimes in Ukraine. Russians have allegedly engaged in the systematic targeting of Ukrainian civilians with the bombardment of civilian homes, infrastructure, churches, and schools. Alleged Russian crimes also include rape, torture, mass trafficking of adults and children, forcible disappearances, and the execution of surrendering Ukrainian soldiers.

The perpetrators who committed and abetted each of these individual crimes must face legal accountability. However, this month’s progress in the quest to establish an international tribunal is aimed at filling another glaring gap in legal accountability. Presently, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is authorized to prosecute Russian nationals for the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, but it is unable to hold Russia’s leaders accountable for the decision to launch the invasion.

This inability to prosecute Russian leaders for the crime of aggression is a significant problem. After all, the attempt by Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders to subjugate Ukraine is a test case with profound consequences for the future of international security. The outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine will reveal whether citizens of all countries can expect to live securely within their recognized borders without threat of invasion, occupation, and annexation.

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Enshrined in the United Nations Charter as “territorial integrity” and “state sovereignty,” the principles challenged by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have stood the test of time since World War II. In the past, even when allegations were levied that a country was violating these principles, there was never any serious question that such rules protecting a country’s borders existed.

These basic rules serve as the cornerstone of today’s international security architecture. They quietly uphold every existing diplomatic, economic, and military arrangement in the world, shaping the environment around us in ways that few notice and almost everybody takes for granted. If Russia is allowed to claim victory or even succeed in holding any of Ukraine’s recognized territory, the entire world will face a shift toward a dark new period in international relations governed by the principle of “might makes right.” A global arms race will likely follow.

Russia’s invasion and attempted illegal annexation of five Ukrainian provinces in a war of conquest is widely recognized by the international community as a crime of aggression. In March 2022, for example, a United Nations General Assembly resolution supported by an overwhelming 141-5 majority condemned Russia’s “aggression against Ukraine in violation of the Charter of the United Nations.”

Critically, the crime of aggression is a leadership crime. Those prosecuted must be military or political leaders. This has fueled speculation that figures like Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials in the Russian Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs could potentially be charged. It remains unlikely that any high-ranking Russians could be forced to stand trial in person, but even prosecutions in absentia could have serious repercussions for Russia itself and for the future framework of international security.

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Significant questions remain about the legal format of a possible tribunal, as different options including a fully international tribunal or a so-called hybrid tribunal established under Ukrainian law would face different limitations. The United States has not yet prioritized support for an international tribunal. Instead, Europe is currently playing a leading role in the push for justice. The proposed legal framework will now be scrutinized closely to see if it precludes the prosecution of key leaders while they remain in office, including Russia’s head of state and other senior Kremlin officials.

Additional issues include the financing of any future tribunal and its location. Presently, The Hague appears to be the most likely option as it hosts the ICC, the International Court of Justice, and the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression, which was established by Eurojust (the European Union’s judicial cooperation agency) in 2023.

This month’s agreement on the framework for a potential tribunal was welcomed in Kyiv. The Ukrainian authorities have proven adept at leveraging international legal mechanisms to pursue justice and accountability for Russian crimes ever since Moscow first invaded Ukraine in 2014. Legal scholars have extolled Ukrainian legal efforts as exemplars of post-colonial nations securing their due rights through such institutions and “countering imperialism through international law.”

Beyond the real legal importance of this progress toward a tribunal for Russian crimes against Ukraine, an accompanying narrative corrective is no less significant. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not a faraway “border issue,” but rather a direct assault on the US-led system of international rules. It is therefore a direct referendum of US credibility on the world stage. Senior officials in the Trump administration have recently framed Russia’s invasion as an issue in which “both sides” must make concessions. Recognizing the one-sided nature of Russian criminal aggression reminds of the many sacrifices Ukraine and Ukrainians have already made in the fight to uphold the core principles underpinning international relations.

Recent announcements regarding a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression should serve as a reminder to US leaders that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remains the world’s most documented war. Too much evidence exists in the public record to deny the reality of Russian crimes. Legal battles to hold Russia accountable will result in multiple highly detailed timelines of crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine. Failure to bring Russia to justice for these crimes could pose serious challenges to the future of international security and to US President Donald Trump’s own historical legacy.

Kristina Hook is assistant professor of conflict management at Kennesaw State University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

This trend survived the Soviet collapse and has been enthusiastically embraced by the Putin regime. Labeling opponents as Nazis is regarded as a particularly effective tactic in modern Russia as it strikes an emotive chord among audiences raised to revere the staggering Soviet sacrifices in the fight against Hitler’s Germany.

Throughout Putin’s reign, domestic political opponents including Alexei Navalny have been routinely demonized as Nazis. The same strategy is frequently employed in the international arena. When Estonia sought to remove a Soviet World War II monument from Tallinn city center in 2007, the Kremlin media went into a frenzy about “Fascist Estonia,” sparking riots among Estonia’s sizable ethnic Russian population. A long list of other international critics and adversaries have faced the same Nazi slurs.

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The most notorious Russian accusations of Nazism have been leveled at Ukraine. Ever since Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, Russian state propaganda has sought to portray Ukrainian national identity as a modern form of fascism that is virtually indistinguishable from Nazism. This propaganda campaign is rooted in Soviet era attempts to discredit Ukraine’s independence movement via association with World War II collaboration. It reached new lows in 2014 as Putin attempted to legitimize the occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and Donbas region.

Moscow’s efforts to portray Ukraine as a Nazi state escalated further following the onset of the full-scale invasion three years ago, with a massive spike in references to “Nazi Ukraine” throughout the Kremlin-controlled Russian media. In this increasingly unhinged environment, few were surprised when Putin announced that one of his two principle war aims was the “denazification” of Ukraine.

It has since become abundantly clear that Putin’s frequent talk of “denazification” is actually Kremlin code for “deukrainianization.” In other words, the ultimate goal of Russia’s current invasion is to create a Ukraine without Ukrainians, with false accusations of Nazism serving as a convenient excuse to justify the destruction of the Ukrainian state and nation.

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The history of nationalist politics in independent Ukraine is far removed from the Kremlin’s fascist fantasies. In reality, Ukrainian far-right parties have never come close to holding political power and typically receive far fewer votes than nationalist candidates in most other European countries.

When Ukraine’s frustrated and marginalized nationalists banded together into a single bloc for the country’s last prewar parliamentary election in 2019, they managed to secure a meager 2.16 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, Russian-speaking Jewish comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election of the same year served to further highlight the absurdity of Russia’s entire “Nazi Ukraine” narrative.

Ever since Zelenskyy’s election, Russian officials have been tying themselves in knots attempting to explain how a supposedly Nazi state could elect a Jewish leader. In one particularly infamous incident during a spring 2022 interview with Italian TV show Zona Bianca, foreign minister Lavrov responded to questioning about Zelenskyy’s Jewish heritage by claiming that Adolf Hitler “also had Jewish blood.”

Lavrov’s latest comments do not signal a significant shift in the Kremlin position toward the United States and should not be blown out of proportion. Nevertheless, it is always worth paying attention when Russia plays the Nazi card. In this instance, the decision to target Trump personally with Nazi slurs by comparing one of his core political messages to Hitler’s propaganda suggests a degree of unease in Moscow over what the Kremlin can expect from the new US administration.

If Trump follows through on his threats to pressure Putin into peace talks, this unease may soon give way to outright hostility. At that point, we can expect to see yet more lurid Russian accusations of Nazism, this time aimed at the United States. That, after all, is how the Kremlin propaganda machine works. Putin claims to venerate the memory of World War II, but he has done more than anyone to distort the legacy of the conflict for his own political gain.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Ukrainian Holocaust survivor: Russia is waging ‘war of extermination’

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 22:33:03 +0000

Ukrainian Holocaust survivor Roman Schwarzman has implored Germany to increase support for Ukraine in the fight against Russia’s “war of extermination.” Addressing the Bundestag this week as part of events to mark 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, Schwarzman accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of attempting to “destroy” Ukraine as a nation. “Back then, Hitler wanted to kill me because I am Jewish. Now Putin wants to kill me because I am Ukrainian.”

Schwarzman, 88, is president of Ukraine’s association for concentration camp and ghetto survivors. Born in Ukraine’s Vinnytsia region in the 1930s when it was part of the Soviet Union, he told German lawmakers of the “humiliation, pain, lice, and constant hunger” he had experienced as a child while confined to the ghetto in the town of Bershad during the Nazi occupation of World War II. “I have already been able to escape extermination once,” he commented. “Now I am an old man and must once again live with the fear that my children and grandchildren could fall victim to a war of extermination.”

Germany ranks second behind the United States in terms of military aid for Ukraine, but Schwarzman called on the country to do more. Responding to German Chancellor Olaf Sholz’s reluctance to deliver long-range Taurus missiles, he argued that Ukraine needs the missiles “in order to disable Russian airfields and rocket depots which are used to attack us every day.” Failure to do so would have dire consequences for Ukraine and for European security, he warned. “Those who believe Putin will be happy with just Ukraine are wrong.”

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Schwarzman’s comments serve as a timely reminder of Russia’s extreme objectives in Ukraine. In recent months, there has been mounting international speculation over the potential territorial concessions Ukraine may be obliged to make in order to end the invasion of their country. In reality, however, the war unleashed by Putin in February 2022 was never about limited territorial gains. From the very beginning, it has been a war to extinguish Ukrainian independence entirely.

Putin’s Ukraine obsession has dominated his reign and can be traced all the way back to Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution. He has always viewed the emergence of an independent Ukraine as an historical injustice and a bitterly resented symbol of the Soviet collapse, which he has described as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century” and “the disintegration of historical Russia.” The Kremlin dictator’s desire to reverse this breakup of “historical Russia” has long focused on Ukraine, and has been given additional impetus by his fears that Ukraine’s fledgling democracy could serve as a catalyst for similar change within his own authoritarian state and spark a new phase in Russia’s retreat from empire.

Putin made his intentions obvious during the buildup to the invasion when he published a rambling 5,000-word history essay arguing against Ukraine’s right to exist and insisting that Ukrainians were in fact Russians (“one people”). As Russian troops massed along the Ukrainian border in February 2022, he described Ukraine as “an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.” He has since compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian ruler Peter the Great, and has declared occupied regions of Ukraine to be “Russian forever.”

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Putin’s contempt for Ukrainian statehood has set the tone throughout wartime Russian society. Vicious anti-Ukrainian rhetoric has become a daily feature of the Kremlin-controlled Russian media space, with Ukrainians routinely demonized and dehumanized. This has led United Nations investigators to note that some content “may constitute incitement to genocide.”

Following Putin’s lead, numerous senior Kremlin officials have also indicated that Russia’s ultimate goal is the complete disappearance of the Ukrainian state. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in particular has become notorious for his unhinged rants. “The existence of Ukraine is mortally dangerous for Ukrainians,” he declared on one occasion in early 2024. More recently, close Putin aide Nikolai Patrushev has predicted that Ukraine “may cease to exist” in 2025.

This genocidal language has been matched by the actions of the invading Russian army. In areas of Ukraine currently under Kremlin control, Russia has systematically targeted anyone deemed a potential threat to the regime. Thousands have been detained and imprisoned, with victims including elected local officials, journalists, civil society activists, army veterans, cultural figures, and anyone regarded as a potential Ukrainian patriot. Those who remain are subjected to ruthless russification including the forced adoption of Russian citizenship. Meanwhile, all traces of Ukrainian national identity, statehood, and culture are being methodically erased.

Russia’s determination to destroy the Ukrainian state and nation is unprecedented in modern European history and makes a complete mockery of calls for a compromise peace. In words and deeds, Putin has made it abundantly clear that he will not tolerate the continued existence of an independent Ukraine, and regards the country’s destruction as an historic mission that will define his reign. Any efforts to broker a sustainable settlement must take this chilling vision into account.

Nobody wants the current war to end more than the Ukrainians themselves, but they are also painfully aware that the survival of their nation is at stake. Unless measures are put in place to prevent the resumption of Russian aggression once Putin has had an opportunity to rearm and regroup, a bad peace deal will merely set the stage for genocide in the heart of Europe.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Ukraine’s ability to adapt has been further demonstrated through the innovative use of civilian infrastructure and technologies. Ukrainian SOF units have effectively incorporated commercial drones, civilian communications networks, and other non-military technologies, showing remarkable creativity in overcoming resource constraints.

One of the most significant lessons from the conflict has been the effective integration of SOF units with conventional military forces engaged in large-scale combat operations. Ukrainian SOF units also played a vital role in preparing the battlefield before and during the initial phases of the invasion. They established networks of resistance, gathered intelligence, and identified key targets that would later prove crucial for conventional forces.

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Ukraine’s achievements since 2022 have owed much to years of solid preparations. Following Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014, Ukrainian Special Operations Forces underwent significant transformation with assistance from NATO countries, particularly the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. Between 2015 and 2021, Ukraine also implemented major structural reforms to align with NATO standards, including the establishment of dedicated SOF training centers.

These steps helped lay the foundations for a sophisticated network of resistance capabilities across potential invasion routes by early 2022. Ukrainian SOF units mapped key infrastructure, identified potential targets, and established relationships with local civilian networks, while developing protocols for rapid information sharing between SOF units, conventional forces, and civilian resistance elements. These preparations proved vital, enabling Ukrainian forces to target Russian supply lines, command nodes, and communications systems using real-time intelligence.

Throughout the invasion, coordination between Ukrainian SOF units and conventional forces has enabled effective combined arms operations. SOF units frequently act as forward observers, providing targeting data to artillery units and conducting battle damage assessments. The ability to rapidly share intelligence has been particularly important in urban environments, where the complexity of the battlefield requires close cooperation between different military elements.

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Russia’s invasion has reinforced the importance of unconventional warfare in modern conflicts. Ukrainian SOF units have successfully employed various unconventional warfare techniques that have had strategic impacts far beyond their tactical execution.

Ukraine’s implementation of guerrilla tactics and sabotage alongside partisans has been highly effective, with numerous successful operations conducted behind enemy lines. This has included the disruption of Russian supply lines, targeting of key military infrastructure and command centers, and the execution of precision strikes on high-value targets.

The psychological aspect of warfare has proven equally important, with Ukrainian SOF units making significant contributions to information warfare campaigns that have influenced both domestic and international audiences. They have conducted deception operations that have complicated Russian planning and operations, while also executing morale operations targeting both enemy forces and occupied populations.

The successful integration of modern technology has been a key characteristic of Ukrainian SOF operations. Despite facing a far wealthier and numerically superior adversary, Ukrainian SOF units have leveraged various technological capabilities to maintain operational effectiveness. They have utilized commercial technologies for reconnaissance and surveillance, integrated drone operations into tactical planning and execution, and leveraged artificial intelligence and big data analytics for targeting and planning.

Ukraine’s SOF operations provide several critical lessons for the country’s Western partners. In terms of doctrine development, it is clear that military organizations must emphasize flexibility and adaptability in force structure and training, while integrating SOF capabilities more deeply in support of conventional forces.

The importance of technological integration and adaptation cannot be overstated. Future military forces must be prepared to operate in environments where commercial technology plays an increasingly important role, and where the ability to utilize these technologies can provide crucial advantages. In terms of equipment, Western planners should focus on communications jamming and interception, improved surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, and integrating AI tools to aid in intelligence collection and analysis.

The role of Ukrainian SOF operations in the current war provides valuable insights for military forces worldwide. Their impact demonstrates the critical importance of adaptability and the effective use of technology in modern warfare. These lessons are particularly relevant as military organizations prepare for future high-intensity conflicts in increasingly complex operational environments.

Doug Livermore is national vice president for the Special Operations Association of America and deputy commander for Special Operations Detachment–Joint Special Operations Command in the North Carolina Army National Guard. The views expressed are the author’s and do not represent official US Government, Department of Defense, or Department of the Army positions.

Appeasement will only fuel Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions in Ukraine

Anastasiia Marushevska — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 01:20:01 +0000

When US President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House next week, his foreign policy priority will be ending the war in Ukraine. As he seeks to engage with the Kremlin, however, Trump is likely to discover that Moscow’s war aims extend far beyond limited territorial gains and leave little room for any meaningful compromise.

If Trump’s peace initiative fails to make progress, it should come as no surprise. After all, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not a simple land grab that can be resolved with some kind of compromise deal. Instead, it is an old-fashioned war of colonial conquest that forms the latest chapter in an historic campaign of Russian imperial aggression against Ukraine stretching back hundreds of years.

Russian rulers have been attempting to suppress Ukraine’s statehood aspirations and subjugate the country ever since the seventeenth century and the days of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate. Throughout the Tsarist and Soviet eras, successive generations of Russian rulers sought to dominate Ukraine and extinguish the very idea of a separate Ukrainian nation. This led to a vast array of crimes and atrocities including as the Holodomor, an artificial famine engineered by the Stalin regime in the 1930s that killed millions of Ukrainians in their own homes.

From the very beginning of his reign, Putin has enthusiastically embraced this Russian imperial tradition. When his initial efforts to reestablish control over Ukraine via political subversion were thwarted by the country’s 2004 and 2014 Maidan revolutions, Putin opted to use force and ordered the Russian military to seize Crimea. This watershed moment in modern European history set the stage for the full-scale invasion of 2022. Putin himself has since underlined his imperial ambitions, comparing his own ongoing invasion to the eighteenth century conquests of Russian Emperor Peter the Great.

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International audiences often struggle to understand the true nature of Russian imperialism because they have been encouraged to view Russia as a nation rather than an empire. While academics and historians have always made clear distinctions between Great Britain or France and their colonial possessions, for example, this has not usually been the case when dealing with Russia. Instead, occupied countries within the Tsarist and Soviet empires such as Ukraine and Georgia have often been treated as ethnic minorities rather than captive nations.

As a result, modern Russia’s expansionist policies typically escape the ire of those who identify as opponents of imperialism. This also helps to explain why everyday cultural practices such as the use of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine are still sometimes perceived by outside audiences as evidence of dangerous nationalism.

The ultimate objective of Russian imperialism in Ukraine could hardly be more extreme. Putin and his predecessors have consistently aimed to erase any sense of Ukrainian national identity and replace it with a Russian imperial identity. In other words, Russia’s historic goal has always been a Ukraine without Ukrainians.

For generations, Ukrainian community leaders were systematically silenced and all evidence of Ukrainian national memory eradicated. Meanwhile, many of Ukraine’s most prominent intellectuals and cultural figures were appropriated by the empire and rebranded as Russians.

Over the centuries, Russia’s long war on Ukrainian identity has been most immediately apparent in the many legislative initiatives introduced to restrict or ban the use the Ukrainian language. This often extended to outright denials. “A separate Ukrainian language never existed, does not exist, and shall not exist,” stated one particularly notorious Russian imperial decree in the mid-nineteenth century.

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Efforts to remove all traces of Ukrainian identity continue in regions of the country currently under Russian occupation. In areas of Ukraine where the Kremlin has been able to establish control since 2022, anyone deemed pro-Ukrainian is at risk of arrest. Thousands have reportedly disappeared into a vast network of prison camps.

Those who remain are being forced to accept Russian citizenship. Dissenters face being stripped of their property rights, denied access to basic services such as healthcare, and deported. They must also subject their children to indoctrination via Kremlin-approved school curriculums that glorify the Russian invasion and demonize the idea of a Ukrainian state. Needless to say, the Ukrainian language is no longer taught or tolerated.

The grim realities of life for the millions of people living in Russian-occupied Ukraine make a complete mockery of suggestions that the war can be stopped simply by handing over more land to Russia. In reality, the current occupation regime is not peace; it is a continuation of Russia’s long war against the Ukrainian nation.

Any attempt to end the war in Ukraine must take Russia’s imperial agenda into account. The future existence of Ukraine is at stake, including everything it represents from language and culture to national memory and ancient traditions. For Ukrainians, this is a fight for national survival against an enemy that makes no secret of its ambition to wipe the country off the map. For Europe as a whole, this is a turning point that will shape the continent’s security climate for many years to come.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not a war for land or resources. It is therefore wishful thinking to suggest that Putin can be appeased with the promise of relatively minor territorial concessions. Like so many Russian rulers who came before him, Putin is determined to destroy Ukraine. The war will continue until he is forced to abandon his imperial ambitions entirely.

Anastasiia Marushevska is a co-founder of Ukrainian NGO PR Army, editor in chief at Ukraїner International, and host of the Decolonisation podcast.

These proposals are not a recipe for a sustainable settlement. On the contrary, Putin’s peace plan is in fact a call for Kyiv’s complete capitulation. Moscow’s demands are deliberately designed to leave Ukraine internationally isolated and unable to defend itself. If these terms are imposed on the Ukrainian authorities, there can be little doubt that Putin would use any subsequent pause in hostilities to rearm before renewing the war in the coming years.

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Russia’s true intentions can be seen in its insistence that Ukraine abandon efforts to join NATO and accept permanent geopolitical neutrality. Moscow claims this is essential in order to safeguard Russian national security, but Putin’s own actions suggest otherwise.

When neighboring Finland announced plans to join NATO in 2022, Putin made no effort to block the process and announced that Russia had “no problems” with Finnish accession. He then went even further, withdrawing most Russian troops from the border with Finland. Clearly, Putin does not view NATO as a security threat to Russia itself. Instead, he sees the alliance as a potential obstacle to his own expansionist ambitions in Ukraine.

Russian demands for a neutral and demilitarized Ukraine should be equally unacceptable in Kyiv and among Ukraine’s Western partners. Agreeing to the Kremlin’s conditions would mean leaving millions of Ukrainians at Putin’s mercy, while also emboldening Moscow and inviting more Russian aggression. From Chechnya and Georgia to Crimea and Syria, there is ample evidence from the past two decades that each successive failure to hold Russia accountable only encourages fresh escalations.

The West’s misguided efforts to appease Putin have already led to the largest and bloodiest European war since World War II. Any further attempts at appeasement will have similarly disastrous consequences for the future stability and security of Europe. Indeed, senior European officials are now warning that a military confrontation with Moscow is becoming more likely, with German spy chief Bruno Kahl recently predicting that Russia may seek to test NATO before the end of the current decade.

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While Russia is pushing for a disarmed and neutral Ukraine, Ukrainian officials are preparing for possible peace talks by prioritizing the need for credible security guarantees. In recent months, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signaled the country’s readiness to temporarily compromise on territorial integrity in order to move forward toward a viable peace. At the same time, officials in Kyiv have underlined that there is no room for any similar compromises on the issue of security guarantees.

Ukraine’s objective remains NATO membership, which is seen in Kyiv as the only credible long-term guarantee of the country’s security and sovereignty. However, key members of the alliance including the United States and Germany remain deeply reluctant to embrace Ukraine’s NATO aspirations.

With their country’s pathway to NATO accession likely to be extremely politically challenging, Ukrainian officials are also exploring the possibility of bilateral security guarantees. In a recent interview with US podcaster Lex Fridman, Zelenskyy said security guarantees for Kyiv to end Russia’s war would only be effective if the United States provides them. He was also scathing of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which saw Ukraine surrender the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the US, and the UK that ultimately proved worthless.

Given the diametrically opposed positions of Russia and Ukraine on the issue of NATO membership, it seems certain that security guarantees will be the most problematic point during any forthcoming negotiations to end the war. Can Western leaders come up with a credible security formula that will safeguard Ukrainian statehood and deter further Russian aggression? Unless they do so, Ukraine’s prospects will be grim and the rest of Europe will face years of costly confrontation with a resurgent Russia.

Serhii Kuzan is Chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center (USCC). He formerly served as an adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (2022-2023) and as an advisor to the Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (2014).

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Many commentators have noted the similarity between Putin’s recent attack on people “with no roots” and Stalin’s earlier Soviet era persecution of Jews as “rootless cosmopolitans.” The Kremlin leader’s comments also offered alarming echoes of Russia’s most notorious antisemitic fake, the early twentieth century Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which alleged a Jewish plot to take over the world by infiltrating and destroying Western institutions.

Putin and his Kremlin colleagues have faced multiple accusations of antisemitism since 2022 as they have sought to defend Moscow’s claims to be “denazifying” Ukraine despite the country’s popularly-elected Jewish president and its role as a prominent destination for Jewish pilgrimages. This toxic trend has included frequent attacks on Zelenskyy’s Jewish heritage. “I have a lot of Jewish friends,” Putin stated in June 2023. “They say that Zelenskyy is not Jewish, that he is a disgrace to the Jewish people. I’m not joking.”

Following these comments, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum accused the Russian leader of repeatedly employing “antisemitic lies” to justify the invasion of Ukraine. US officials have been similarly critical. “President Zelenskyy’s Jewishness has nothing to do with the situation in Ukraine and Putin’s continued focus on this topic and “denazification” narrative is clearly intended to distract from Russia’s war of aggression against the Ukrainian people,” commented US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt in 2023.

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Similar slurs feature regularly in the Kremlin-controlled Russian state media, with leading propagandists such as Vladimir Solovyov known for questioning the authenticity of Zelenskyy’s Jewish identity. Meanwhile, during the initial months of the invasion in spring 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded to a question about the absurdity of “denazifying” a country with a Jewish leader by claiming that Adolf Hitler “also had Jewish blood.” Lavrov’s remarks sparked outrage and were branded “unforgivable” by Israeli officials.

Many within the Jewish community see Putin’s most recent inflammatory comments as part of a broader trend that is legitimizing antisemitic tropes and raising serious safety concerns. “This is just one example of his regime’s explicit and virulent antisemitism, which has intensified following his 2022 invasion of Ukraine,” commented Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis and former Chief Rabbi of Moscow, who fled Russia following the attack on Ukraine after coming under pressure to publicly endorse the invasion. In December 2022, Goldschmidt warned of rising antisemitism in Putin’s Russia and advised Jews to leave the country.

Goldschmidt is now appealing to the international community to address the antisemitic rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin. “As a representative of Jewish communities across Europe, and someone who was forced to flee my home and community in Moscow, I call on Europe and the free world to unequivocally condemn President Putin’s dangerous propaganda before it spreads further,” he stated.

Joshua Stein is a researcher with a PhD from the University of Calgary.

The fact that Ukraine is not Russia may seem insultingly obvious when viewed from a Ukrainian perspective, but in reality this was the fundamental image problem facing the country in 2022. Indeed, it is no coincidence that on the eve of the full-scale invasion, Vladimir Putin published an entire essay denying the legitimacy of a separate Ukrainian state on the grounds that Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”).

Putin did not invent this narrative of Ukraine denial himself. His predecessors have been insisting that Ukraine is an inalienable part of Russia since at least the eighteenth century, and have ruthlessly manipulated the historical record to support their arguments. Throughout the Tsarist and Soviet eras, anyone attempting to counter this Great Russian narrative or highlight Ukraine’s long statehood struggle was treated as a dangerous heretic subject to the harshest of punishments.

For generations, Russia was able to impose its imperial propaganda on international audiences, with Ukrainians silenced and Ukraine misleadingly portrayed as an intrinsic part of Russia’s own historical heartlands. It was therefore understandable that when an independent Ukraine appeared on the map in 1991, many had trouble distinguishing it from Russia. This created much confusion and went some way to legitimizing subsequent Russian attempts to reassert its authority over Ukraine.

The full-scale invasion has changed all that. Since February 2022, international perceptions of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine have undergone a radical transformation as global audiences have witnessed the ferocity of the Russian attack and the determination of Ukraine’s national defense. The war unleashed by Vladimir Putin has killed hundreds of thousands and shattered millions of lives; it has also finally buried the Kremlin myth of Russians and Ukrainians as “one people.” As the invasion approaches the three-year mark, it is now safe to say that anyone who continues to insist on the indivisibility of Russia and Ukraine is either acting in bad faith, or is so stunningly ignorant that their opinion can be disregarded.

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2. Ukraine is huge

Prewar Ukraine’s low international profile encouraged many to imagine the country as an obscure and irrelevant statelet whose fate mattered little to the wider world. Meanwhile, very few people seemed to appreciate that Ukraine was in fact the largest country wholly in Europe. That is no longer the case. Throughout the past three years, the map of Ukraine has featured relentlessly in the international press. Even casual observers have grown familiar with the outline of the country, and cannot have failed to notice how large it looms over its European neighbors.

Media coverage of battlefield developments has also helped to emphasize the sheer size of Ukraine. Despite regular war reports of major offensives and record advances, the overall picture of the front lines has changed little since the first year of the war, underlining the comparative vastness of Ukraine. While Ukraine may still appear small when compared to Russia, it is a huge country by European standards. Growing awareness of this fact is helping to shape perceptions of Ukraine’s geopolitical significance.

3. Ukraine is an agricultural superpower

Prior to 2022, Ukraine was probably best known to many around the world as the site of the Chornobyl disaster. Associations with the world’s worst nuclear accident were particularly unfortunate as Ukraine is anything but a radioactive wasteland. In reality, the country’s real claim to fame is as the breadbasket of Europe. Ukraine’s fabled black soil is among the most fertile land in the entire world, making much of the country a giant garden of agrarian abundance.

Since 2022, Russia’s invasion has helped educate international audiences about Ukraine’s crucial role in global food security. Extensive media coverage of Russia’s Black Sea naval blockade has highlighted the importance of Ukrainian agricultural exports, with disruption caused by Moscow’s interference leading to famine fears in Africa and price hikes on basic foodstuffs throughout the West. Growing awareness of Ukraine’s status as an agricultural superpower has undermined Kremlin efforts to portray the ongoing invasion as a strictly local affair, and has mobilized international opposition to the war.

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4. Ukraine is an innovation hub

For decades, international perceptions of Ukraine were plagued by lazy cliches depicting the country as a terminally corrupt backwater on the vodka-soaked fringes of Eastern Europe. These deeply unflattering caricatures of Ukrainian stagnation were always misleading. They are now also hopelessly outdated. Since 2022, Ukraine has demonstrated that it is a sophisticated high tech nation capable of more than holding its own in the most technologically advanced war the world has ever seen. Ukraine’s ability to develop, deploy, and update its own domestically-produced weapons systems on an almost daily basis has done much to debunk the negative stereotypes of old and establish the country’s reputation as a leading innovation hub.

Ukrainian defense tech companies have been responsible for a string of particularly innovative battlefield solutions that have caught the eye of global defense industry giants and helped Ukraine even up the odds against the country’s far larger and wealthier enemy. For example, ground-breaking Ukrainian marine drones have turned the tide in the Battle of the Black Sea and forced Russia’s entire fleet to retreat from Crimea, while Ukrainian long-range drones routinely strike targets deep inside Russia. As a result, “Made in Ukraine” is now recognized as a stamp of quality throughout the international security sector. This image transformation is already attracting international investors and will shape Ukraine’s economic development for decades to come, with the country’s defense industry and broader tech sector set to be in high demand.

5. Ukraine is united

The full-scale invasion has seriously undermined longstanding Russian efforts to portray Ukraine as a country irrevocably split along geographical and ideological lines. The narrative of a divided Ukraine has been a mainstay of Kremlin propaganda since the Soviet era, and has been central to the disinformation that has accompanied the escalating Russian aggression of the past two decades. For many years, this crude oversimplification of Ukraine’s regional complexities proved superficially persuasive among international audiences, but it has been decisively debunked by Ukraine’s united response to Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Ukrainians across the country have overwhelmingly rallied in opposition to the invading Russians, with residents in supposedly “pro-Russian” cities such as Odesa and Kharkiv proving no less determined to defend themselves and their homes. This is not to say that regional diversity is no longer a feature in today’s Ukraine, of course. On the contrary, Ukraine remains just as subject to regional differences as any other large European nation. However, the Russian invasion has shattered the myth of a terminally divided Ukraine and proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the vast majority of Ukrainians bitterly oppose the idea of a Russian reunion.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Russia’s Syrian exploits were afforded blanket coverage throughout the country’s carefully curated information space. The Kremlin media spent much of the past decade trumpeting the war in Syria as a symbol of Russia’s return to Great Power status, with Moscow pundits routinely positioning the country’s military campaign as a righteous crusade against Western intrigues and Islamist forces of darkness. There have been endless documentaries, propaganda tours, and even a classical concert amid the rubble of a country devastated by Russian aerial bombardment. All this is now seemingly forgotten as the Kremlin seeks to ingratiate itself with the new powers that be in Damascus.

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Putin’s readiness to surrender his entire propaganda position in Syria and quietly accept new military realities should now help the West to overcome its crippling fear of Russian escalation in Ukraine. Ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began almost three years ago, the Western response has been hampered by concerns that support for Ukraine could provoke Russia into escalating its aggression and lead to a broadening of the conflict. Putin has skillfully exploited these fears, using a combination of nuclear threats and warnings of Russian red lines to limit the delivery of Western military aid to Kyiv and impose absurd restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.

This excessive Western caution has infuriated many in Kyiv, not least because Ukraine has repeatedly exposed Russia’s threats as empty. When Putin threatened to defend his Ukrainian conquests with nuclear weapons in September 2022 and declared “I’m not bluffing,” Ukraine promptly called his bluff and liberated the strategically vital southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. Instead of reaching for his nuclear briefcase, Putin simply ordered his defeated troops to retreat across the Dnipro River. Likewise, when Ukraine disregarded Kremlin bluster and proceeded to sink or damage around one-third of the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet, Putin did not go nuclear. On the contrary, he instructed his remaining warships to withdraw from Russian-occupied Crimea to the relative safety of Russian ports.

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The biggest blow to the myth of inevitable Russian escalation came in summer 2024, when Ukraine crossed the reddest of all Russian red lines by invading Russia itself. As Ukrainian troops flooded across the border and began occupying swathes of Russia’s Kursk Oblast, Putin’s response was telling. He made no attempt to rally his compatriots against the foreign invader or warn of impending nuclear war. Quite the opposite, in fact. Rather than raising the stakes, Putin consciously chose to downplay the entire Ukrainian offensive, referring to it as a mere “provocation.”

Putin’s underwhelming response to the fall of his Syrian ally Bashar Assad serves as a timely reminder that Western fears of Russian escalation are wildly exaggerated. In reality, whenever Putin finds himself confronted by a resolute opponent, he is inclined to retreat. Like all bullies, he seeks to overwhelm his victims with intimidation. However, as we have seen repeatedly in Ukraine, his threats are almost always hollow.

This is good news for advocates of a “peace through strength” strategy, including those within the incoming Trump administration. Putin’s ability to intimidate the West has been his greatest success of the entire war in Ukraine, but it should now be abundantly clear that Russia’s saber-rattling is built on bluff.

The Kremlin’s inability to rescue its Syrian ally has revealed the humble reality behind Putin’s Great Power posturing. The Russian military is now obviously overextended by the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, while Putin is in a far weaker position than he would like us to believe. Crucially, he is also more than capable of completely rejecting his own propaganda and rewriting history when necessary. If confronted with the prospect of military defeat in Ukraine, there is every reason to believe he will retreat again, while ordering his media machine to save his blushes.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Romania annulled its presidential election results amid alleged Russian interference. What happens next?

Atlantic Council experts — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 23:21:32 +0000

Instead of a runoff, they’ll have a rerun. On Friday, Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the results of the country’s first-round presidential election, in which dark horse candidate Calin Georgescu won the most votes. The court’s order that the presidential electoral process must be “entirely redone” comes after Romanian President Klaus Iohannis declassified intelligence reports alleging a Russian interference campaign geared toward benefiting Georgescu on TikTok and Telegram.

What are the next steps for Romania’s presidential race after this unprecedented ruling? And what are its implications for the country’s democracy? Our experts answer six burning questions below.

1. Why was the presidential election nullified?

This decision is historic and unprecedented. The Constitutional Court of Romania unanimously made the decision on the basis of Article 146 (f) of the Constitution concerning the legality and correctness of the presidential electoral process, with the court’s decision today stating that the “entire electoral process will be integrally redone.” The rollout of the decision was somewhat fumbled, as it became public while polling stations were already open for the diaspora in the second-round presidential election, and by the time the process was stopped, around 53,000 citizens abroad had already voted.

This binding decision from the court comes on the heels of rapidly developing information concerning state-sponsored interference in the electoral process and Russian hybrid activities, as well as accusations of campaign finance violations. The court made its decision stating that the integrity of the vote had been affected, as one candidate skirted the law in his campaign and benefited from unfair promotion. Continued clear communication from the authorities will be critical to provide information to a society that is feeling tense and exhausted after weeks of elections.

—Anca Agachi is a defense policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and a nonresident fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

It’s never a good thing when an election is nullified. In this case, Romania’s Constitutional Court appears to have acted on the basis of information regarding Russian interference on behalf of Georgescu. Romanian society appears divided in its reaction, with even the liberal opposition leader, Elena Lasconi, Georgescu’s opponent in the presidential race, criticizing the decision. Demonstrations could follow in what seems to be a highly charged political environment. Romania’s December 1 parliamentary elections, however, are not affected by the decision. The new Parliament should be seated around December 21 and will be in a position to create a new government.

—Daniel Fried is the Weiser family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former assistant US Secretary of State for Europe.

The decision to annul the first round of Romania’s presidential election revolves around declassified documents from the country’s intelligence services that allege that a coordinated campaign promoted pro-Russian candidate Georgescu to unexpectedly garner the largest percentage of the vote on November 24.

Those allegations, which have not been proven beyond what has been published by Romania’s security services, include a coordinated campaign across social media platforms such as Telegram, Facebook, and, most importantly, TikTok that gave would-be voters the assumption that Georgescu was a more prominent candidate than had been expected before the November 24 vote. Hashtags associated with the ultranationalist candidate gained significant visibility on TikTok in the days ahead of the first round vote, and the country’s authorities subsequently asked the European Commission to look into the irregularities under the bloc’s newly passed social media laws.

A lot remains uncertain. While the Atlantic Council’s own analysis of TikTok and Telegram found significant amounts of coordination to promote Georgescu to the widest online audience possible, much of this activity was completely legal under Romania’s election laws. Claims that online influencers were paid to champion the candidate’s causes—and did not disclose those payments under campaign financing rules—do fall into the category of potential illegal behavior.

It’s unclear whether social media significantly altered voters’ choices in this particular election. Repeated studies have demonstrated that people’s access to digital platforms like TikTok represent only a part of a wider media diet, including access to traditional media and discussions with friends and family, that contributes to how they eventually decide to vote. What we do know is there is clear evidence that Georgescu’s campaign was promoted heavily by often clandestine activity across multiple social media platforms in ways that, while opaque, were mostly legal, based on what has been disclosed by local authorities and via the Atlantic Council’s own analysis.

—Mark Scott is senior resident fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab’s (DFRLab) Democracy + Tech Initiative within the Atlantic Council Technology Programs. He was previously the chief technology correspondent for Politico.

2. What does this incident tell us about the resilience of democracy in Romania?

We just experienced a near-miss in the heart of NATO. Romania, a NATO ally for two decades with a record of democratic integrity, almost had a presidential election stolen by foreign intervention. The good news is that Romania’s democracy proved itself to be sufficiently robust and resilient to prevent this interference from having a decisive impact—though the final outcome of the rescheduled elections will ultimately determine that.

The alleged interference also underscores the power of social media, how vulnerable tech platforms are to manipulation, and how significant this can be to the future of democracy. Much thought and action is urgently needed to ensure that social media is channeled and structured so that it enhances the vibrancy of democracy rather than becoming a weapon to undermine it.

—Ian Brzezinski is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO policy.

The next days, weeks, and months will be critical to ensuring that Romanian democracy has long-term prospects of not only survival, but recovery. This election season comes on the heels of massive structural challenges, such as endemic distrust in state institutions and socioeconomic issues, such as cost of living hikes and brain drain. Another major challenge for the country is corruption, which led to a sizable anti-system vote in both the presidential and parliamentary elections and provided a fertile ground for far-right parties and for malicious interference activities.

On top of these structural challenges, there were issues with the authorities’ communication in the aftermath of the presidential election. The public experienced a whiplash in the Constitutional Court’s decisions as to whether the presidential election can proceed to the second round. The government’s communication was inconsistent concerning the fate of the presidential election, the role played by state-sponsored actors, and Russia’s role in influencing the process (including if and how these factors influenced the actual voting result). Meanwhile, jockeying among domestic political parties has created tension and deepened distrust in society.

Notably, nongovernmental organizations, the media, and other civil society groups rose up to fill the void in an essential and constructive fashion. For instance, a media investigation uncovered links between the Kremlin and pro-Georgescu Romanian influencers. And it was civil society organizations that asked for the declassification of Supreme National Council of Defence documents pertaining to election interference. The information this kind of engagement has uncovered has been like oxygen to a society holding its breath.

—Anca Agachi

3. Who is in charge of managing this issue now, and what can we expect from the key players in the election and society at large?

This will be a whole-of-government effort, likely spread across the newly elected (and fragmented) Parliament with responsibility over legislation and choosing the new prime minister, Iohannis (who will remain in power until a new president can take the oath of office following elections), relevant authorities with responsibilities for resilience and security, electoral authorities, and probably the judicial branch as well.

Ideally, their focus will be on three things: 1) Build national unity in the face of far-right and anti-Euro-Atlantic forces. 2) Take action to inspect and secure critical vulnerabilities from further foreign interference. 3) Investigate the causes that led to this outcome, especially the details of the interference effort, potential collusion of those who may have benefited from it, and any responsibility of Romanian authorities in the slow identification of coordinated campaigns to influence the vote.

Elected officials will play a critical role in communicating with the public regarding what lies ahead until the elections can be held again (likely in March), given the tension that exists in society already, massive gaps in information concerning this unprecedented decision, its implications for the country, and the challenges posed by foreign interference. However, as the entire presidential election process will be restarted, a lot of attention will be focused domestically on the repositioning of candidates and political blocs.

—Anca Agachi

The new Parliament will support a new government. The current president may continue in office until his successor is elected but may also resign, in which case the new president of the Senate will become interim president. One wild card is whether supporters of Georgescu will mount protests and whether these can attract widespread support.

—Daniel Fried

4. What sort of government will emerge when the new Parliament convenes on December 21?

While predictions are uncertain, the pro-European parties appear to have formed a coalition and have a majority of votes in the Parliament. That said, the parliamentary and presidential elections indicated a strong anti-incumbency trend in Romania.

—Daniel Fried

5. What can we expect next from Russia?

We can expect Russian denunciation and a wave of (feigned) outrage. The Kremlin appears to support political extremes in Romania, as elsewhere, promoting through statements and trolls a narrative of Western oppression and domination of Romania, hoping that Romanians forget the long record of Kremlin-imposed communist rule that kept Romania poor and autocratic for two generations.

—Daniel Fried

6. What lessons should the United States and Europe take from this, and what should they do right now?

First, democratic resilience is an issue to be taken extremely seriously in Europe, not only because of what it means for domestic stability in transatlantic countries, but also given its implications for broader regional security and defense. Romania is a key NATO country in the southeast of the Alliance, and its internal political turmoil has broad implications for allied stability. Given the growth of far-right movements throughout Europe, the circumstances of this election should not be taken lightly.

Second, renewed attention should be paid toward deepening and expanding the national and transatlantic toolbox available to respond to hybrid incidents in a broader context of transatlantic adaptation in the aftermath of Russia’s war in Ukraine. We expect information to come out in the next few weeks about what exactly happened in Romania’s case, but whatever the findings may be, it is clear that broader resilience and operational capacity in hybrid responses will be critical to transatlantic security.

—Anca Agachi

Russia seeks to strengthen extremist politics and promote a sense of threat throughout Europe, using a variety of methods including information manipulation, support for extremist politics, economic pressure, sabotage, threats, intimidation, and, in the case of Ukraine, war. Those in Europe who thought that Russian aggression had nothing to do with them have discovered their error. Russia has not created political fissures in European countries (or the United States) but seeks to exacerbate and exploit them. The solution lies in resisting Russian pressure while working to address those social and economic problems that give rise to vulnerabilities. This is not a new challenge but a current manifestation of an older one, and some perspective can help guide a common response.

—Daniel Fried

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Tucker Carlson warns of WWIII, but Russia’s nuclear threats ring hollow

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 01:33:38 +0000

US media personality Tucker Carlson was back in Moscow this week to interview Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and raise the nuclear alarm. This is Carlson’s second trip to the Russian capital in 2024 and comes following his headline-grabbing February interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. On that occasion, Carlson said his intention was to provide Putin with a platform to explain his reasons for invading Ukraine. This time, he appears intent highlighting the prospect of a direct clash between Russia and the United States. “We are closer to nuclear war than any time in history,” Carlson commented in a promotional video previewing the Lavrov interview.

From a Russian perspective, the timing of Carlson’s visit and his message of impending nuclear apocalypse are fortuitous, to say the least. In recent weeks, the United States has granted Ukraine the right to use US-supplied missiles against military targets inside Russia, despite months of increasingly direct nuclear warnings from Russian officials. Unfortunately for the Kremlin, it would seem that Putin’s nuclear bluff has been called once too often and his threats are now viewed as empty. In such circumstances, it is easy to understand why Moscow would welcome Carlson’s arrival.

While the details of Carlson’s latest Moscow mission are not yet known, many have been quick to claim that the main objective of his visit is to amplify Putin’s nuclear blackmail. “Every day, I watch Russian experts on state TV complaining that Americans are not afraid of Moscow’s nuclear threats and wondering what they can do to scare us, in order to dissuade Americans from supporting Ukraine,” commented prominent Kremlin media monitor Julia Davis. “That’s why Tucker is in Moscow.”

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Nuclear intimidation has been central to Vladimir Putin’s strategy as he has sought to deter the West from coming to the aid of Ukraine following Russia’s February 2022 invasion. In his initial address announcing the decision to invade, Putin warned that any attempts at Western interference would be met with a nuclear response. Three days later, he underlined the message by placing Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert.

Putin has continued to engage in regular bouts of nuclear bluster ever since. In September 2022, he vowed to defend Russia’s recent conquests in Ukraine with the country’s vast nuclear arsenal. “I’m not bluffing,” he stated. In spring 2024, he ordered nuclear drills after French President Emmanuel Macron raised the prospect of deploying troops to Ukraine. More recently, Putin has unveiled a revised Russian nuclear doctrine and declared that any decision to allow Ukrainian long-range strikes inside Russia using Western weapons would mean that the West was “at war” with Russia.

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For much of the current war, Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling has proved an effective tool, enabling him to limit the flow of military aid to Ukraine and impose restrictions on Kyiv’s ability to defend itself. However, there are now growing signs that Western leaders are no longer prepared to be intimidated. This is arguably long overdue. After all, ever since the early months of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine has consistently demonstrated a readiness to call Putin’s bluff and has repeatedly crossed Russian red lines without sparking a nuclear response.

In November 2022, Ukrainian forces liberated the key southern city of Kherson, just weeks after Putin had proclaimed it to be “forever Russian.” Despite this very personal humiliation, the Russian ruler did not reach for his nuclear briefcase. Instead, he ordered his defeated troops to retreat quietly across the Dnipro river. Likewise, when Ukraine challenged Putin’s grip on the occupied Crimean peninsula by sinking or disabling around one-third of the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet, he opted not to escalate and withdrew the bulk of his remaining warships to the safety of Russian ports.

The biggest single blow to Putin’s intimidation tactics came in August 2024, when Ukraine crossed the reddest of all red lines by invading Russia itself. Tellingly, Putin’s response to the first foreign occupation of Russian soil since World War II was to downplay the significance of Kyiv’s bold offensive. Rather than attempting to rally his fellow Russians against the invader, Putin dismissed Ukraine’s incursion as a mere “provocation” and ordered the Kremlin media to convince domestic audiences that the presence of Ukrainian troops inside Russia’s borders was the “new normal.”

In recent weeks, the Kremlin has sought to counter the crumbling credibility of its nuclear threats by demonstrating a willingness to escalate. Following the US decision to authorize long-range attacks inside Russia, Moscow launched an experimental nuclear-capable ballistic missile at a city in central Ukraine. However, the stunt failed to convince Western officials to rethink their position, with Ukrainian airstrikes on Russian targets continuing. Quoting four unnamed Kremlin officials, The Moscow Times called the launch a “propaganda operation” that was designed to “put the Americans and the British in their place and scare Berlin and other Europeans into submission.”

It remains to be seen whether Tucker Carlson’s timely intervention will lead to a revival of Western paralysis in the face of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Putin’s ability to intimidate the West with nuclear threats has been his greatest single success of the entire war, but this approach is clearly no longer producing the desired results. If Western leaders can now convince the Kremlin that they have finally overcome their fear of escalation, this could help persuade Putin to engage in meaningful negotiations for a sustainable peace deal. Crucially, it would also send a powerful signal to other would-be aggressors that nuclear saber-rattling doesn’t work and will be met with a resolute response.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Protests erupted as soon as the decision to freeze EU talks was announced, with large numbers of people flocking to the center of the Georgian capital to defend against what many see as an attack on their country’s democratic system and European future. The authorities have reacted by ordering a hard line response that has included the use of water cannons and tear gas against protesters along with the arrest of prominent opposition figures and multiple incidents of heavy-handed policing. Security forces are accused of deliberately targeting journalists and attacking protesters seeking to record evidence of excesses.

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The protests currently taking place across Georgia are the latest episode in an extended period of anti-government unrest that began last year when the ruling Georgian Dream party attempted to pass Russian-style foreign agent legislation targeting civil society. Protests then resumed in the aftermath of the parliamentary election in October. Many in Tbilisi are now comparing current events to the April 1989 protests that were crushed by the Soviet authorities, sparking Georgia’s independence movement. There have also been widespread comparisons with Ukraine’s two post-Soviet Maidan revolutions in defense of the country’s fledgling democracy and European choice.

Some Georgian government officials are siding with the protesters, with hundreds signing an open letter condemning the suspension of EU accession talks. A number of Georgian ambassadors and senior officials including Deputy Foreign Minister Teimuraz Jandzhalia have resigned in protest. Meanwhile, schools and universities across the country have halted classes amid signs of a growing civil disobedience campaign.

The protests have also attracted considerable international support. In a November 29 statement, US Helsinki Commission leaders expressed solidarity with the Georgian people while condemning the government crackdown and declaring the Georgian authorities “illegitimate.” Other countries have issued similar statements or imposed sanctions measures on Georgian Dream officials linked to violence against protesters.

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The mounting confrontation in Georgia has potentially far-reaching implications for the wider region. Critics of the Georgian Dream authorities accuse the party of seeking to turn their country away from Euro-Atlantic integration and return Georgia to the Russian sphere of influence. They argue that Georgia is a key battleground in the struggle between the democratic world and the emerging axis of authoritarian nations led by Russia and China.

If Moscow is able to return Georgia to the Kremlin orbit, this could have grave consequences for neighboring Armenia, which has sought to deepen ties with the West amid disillusionment over Russia’s failure to support the country during its recent war with Azerbaijan. It would also send a powerful message to other countries looking to turn away from Moscow at a time when Russia is waging the largest European war since World War II in Ukraine over Kyiv’s European aspirations.

The Georgian Dream authorities reject accusations that they are steering the country away from Europe and back toward Moscow. During the recent parliamentary election campaign, they focused on messages of peace and stability while claiming to being shielding Georgia from Ukraine’s fate. However, the sheer scale of the current protests suggests that a large percentage of Georgians reject the idea of securing peace at the expense of their most basic human rights and democratic freedoms.

With the opposition movement gaining momentum, much may now depend on the role of the international community. Protest leaders will be hoping that the US, EU, and other Western countries impose tougher sanctions on Georgian Dream officials while increasing their support for Georgia’s independent media and civil society. As they mull their response to events in Georgia, Western officials will be well aware of the high stakes involved. The outcome of the protests will likely define Georgia’s future and shape the geopolitical climate in the southern Caucasus and beyond for years to come.

Ana Lejava is a policy associate at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security.

Vladimir Putin does not want a peace deal. He wants to destroy Ukraine.

Yuliya Kazdobina — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 22:08:38 +0000

Donald Trump’s recent election victory is fueling international speculation over a possible deal to end the war in Ukraine. For now, much of the debate remains centered on what kinds of concessions Ukraine may be willing to make in order to secure a negotiated peace. However, the real question is whether Russian President Vladimir Putin has any interest at all in ending his invasion. The available evidence suggests that he does not. On the contrary, Putin appears to be as committed as ever to his goal of extinguishing Ukrainian statehood entirely.

For many years, Putin has publicly questioned the Ukrainian nation’s right to exist. He has repeatedly stated that he sees today’s independent Ukraine as an artificial state, and regards all those who disagree with this verdict as anti-Russian forces or outright Nazis. For more than a decade, he has sought to turn this toxic vision into reality via an escalating campaign of military aggression.

When Putin embarked on the latest stage of his campaign to destroy Ukraine in February 2022, he declared that the goals of his full-scale invasion were the “demilitarization” and denazification” of the country. During abortive spring 2022 peace negotiations in Istanbul, it became apparent that Russia’s interpretation of demilitarization would have left Ukraine disarmed and defenseless.

Putin’s representatives during the Istanbul talks called for the Ukrainian army to be drastically reduced to a minimal force of just 50,000 troops, with strict limits also placed on the amount of armor and types of missiles Ukraine could possess. Meanwhile, Russia would face no such restrictions. Crucially, the Kremlin demanded complete Ukrainian neutrality and insisted on retaining a veto over any international military aid to Kyiv in the event of renewed hostilities. These punishing terms leave little room for doubt that Putin’s intention was to place Ukraine completely at his mercy and in no position to resist the next stage of Russian aggression.

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The implications of “denazification” are even more ominous. Putin has long accused Ukraine of being a “Nazi state,” despite the fact that the country has a popularly elected Jewish president and no far-right politicians in government. In reality, “denazification” is Kremlin code for the complete eradication of a separate Ukrainian national identity. In other words, Putin pretends to be fighting fascism order to legitimize his criminal goal of a Ukraine without Ukrainians.

The grim consequences of Putin’s “denazification” policies are already evident throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine. In regions of the country currently under Kremlin control, all traces of Ukrainian statehood and national identity are being ruthlessly purged. Ukrainian children are forced to study a Kremlin curriculum that demonizes Ukraine while glorifying the invasion of their country. Adults must accept Russian citizenship if they wish to access basic services such as pensions and healthcare.

Anyone regarded as a potential threat to the Russian occupation authorities is at risk of deportation, abduction, torture, or execution. While it is impossible to determine exact figures, it is estimated that thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been detained since February 2022. In most cases, relatives of detainees have no way of knowing if they are still alive. Britain’s The Economist recently described conditions in Russian-occupied Ukraine as a “totalitarian hell.” It is a very specific vision of hell that has been designed to remove all traces of Ukraine and impose an imperial Russian identity.

The most obvious indication of Russia’s genocidal intent in Ukraine has been the mass deportation of Ukrainian children, with thousands abducted and transferred to a system of camps where they are subjected to indoctrination in order to rob them of their Ukrainian heritage and turn them into loyal Kremlin subjects. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in relation to these abductions. The UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention recognizes “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” as an act of genocide.

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Russia’s own actions since February 2022 have made a mockery of the arguments used by the Kremlin to justify the war. At the start of the full-scale invasion, Putin claimed to be defending the rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east of the country. However, the Russian army has since killed tens of thousands of predominantly Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine, while reducing dozens of towns and cities across the region to rubble.

Likewise, Russia’s attempts to justify the attack on Ukraine by painting it as a response to NATO enlargement have been largely debunked by Putin himself. When neighboring Finland and Sweden responded to Russia’s invasion by announcing plans in spring 2022 to abandon decades of neutrality and join NATO, Putin was quick to declare that Russia had “no problem” with the move. This indifference was particularly striking as Finnish accession more than doubled Russia’s NATO border, while Swedish membership transformed the strategically vital Baltic Sea into a NATO lake.

Putin has since gone even further, withdrawing the bulk of Russian troops from the Finnish border and leaving it largely undefended. Based on Putin’s remarkably relaxed response to NATO’s recent Nordic enlargement, it seems safe to conclude that he does not in fact view the NATO alliance as a security threat to Russia itself, and has merely exploited the issue as a smokescreen for his own imperial ambitions in Ukraine.

As Donald Trump attempts to implement his campaign promise and end the war in Ukraine, he is likely to discover that his famed deal-making skills are no match for Putin’s single-minded obsession with the destruction of Ukraine. In words and deeds, Putin has repeatedly demonstrated his commitment to wiping Ukraine off the map. In such circumstances, any talk of a compromise settlement is dangerously delusional. Until Putin is forced to recognize Ukraine’s right to exist, any peace deals will be temporary and the threat of further Russian aggression will remain.

Yuliya Kazdobina is a senior fellow at the “Ukrainian Prism” Foreign Policy Council. This text is adapted from the “Pragmatic Dialogue with the West: Why it is Worth Supporting Ukraine” project undertaken with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation. It represents the views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the position of the International Renaissance Foundation.

Prior to the revolution, post-Soviet Russia had substantial influence in Ukraine, with Vladimir Putin topping polls as the most popular politician among Ukrainians. At the same time, the two countries were already quite distinct. The centralized power vertical in Russia created the conditions for hard authoritarianism. In contrast, the need to balance competing centers of influence and power in Ukraine gave rise to a softer authoritarianism.

Putin’s heavy-handed promotion of Viktor Yanukovych ahead of the 2004 presidential election, and his subsequent push for a crackdown on protesters during the Orange Revolution, highlighted the growing differences between the two nations. This hastened Ukraine’s trajectory away from Russia, a pattern that continues to this day.

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Putin played a very prominent personal role in the Orange Revolution. Russian television, which was at the time widely watched in Ukraine, relentlessly pushed the candidacy of Viktor Yanukovych during the buildup to Ukraine’s presidential election. On the eve of the vote, Putin made the fateful decision to intervene directly. He traveled to Kyiv in late October 2004, where he was greeted with an impromptu military parade before appearing on national TV to lecture the Ukrainian public at length on the importance of backing his preferred presidential pick.

It soon became clear that Putin had miscalculated disastrously. His open and unapologetic attempt to interfere in Ukraine’s internal affairs was widely interpreted as a grave insult and an indication of his contempt for Ukrainian statehood. This electrified public opinion and helped mobilize millions of previously apolitical Ukrainians.

Weeks later, after a deeply flawed second round of voting, Ukrainians would respond to the attempted theft of their election by flooding into central Kyiv in huge numbers. It is no exaggeration to say that Putin’s act of supreme imperial hubris was one of the key causes of the Orange Revolution.

This pattern has repeated itself throughout the past twenty years, with Putin’s efforts to impose his will on Ukraine consistently backfiring and pushing the two countries further apart. In 2013, he pressured his Ukrainian ally Yanukovych to abandon European integration and return the country to the Kremlin orbit, only for this to provoke a second revolution and the fall of the Yanukoych regime.

Putin then opted for a military solution. He began the invasion of Ukraine in February 2014 with the seizure of Crimea, before sending forces into eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region weeks later. When it became obvious that this limited military intervention had merely succeeded in strengthening Ukraine’s resolve to exit the Russian sphere of influence entirely, Putin began plotting what would become the full-scale invasion of February 2022.

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Since the Orange Revolution, Putin’s quest to reconquer Ukraine has come to define his entire reign. In his single-minded pursuit of this goal, he has demonstrated a willingness to incur huge costs. In addition to the lives of the countless Russian soldiers killed or maimed while fighting in Ukraine, Putin has also sacrificed Russia’s economic prosperity, the country’s international standing, and its ties to the developed world.

The historic shift in Putin’s worldview was already evident soon after the Orange Revolution. Within a few months of Ukraine’s people power uprising, he ordered work to begin on the development of what would become the Kremlin’s flagship RT English-language media platform. This was the first step in a process that has established the Putin regime as the undisputed global leader in the dissemination of anti-Western disinformation.

In spring 2005, the Kremlin also backed a nationwide campaign encouraging Russians to display orange-and-black St. George’s ribbons in honor of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. With images of rebellious Ukrainians sporting orange ribbons still fresh in everyone’s minds, the loyalist symbolism of this counter-gesture was hard to miss. St. George’s ribbons have gone on to establish themselves at the heart of a fanatical victory cult as the Putin regime has sought to justify its own authoritarianism via ever more extravagant forms of WWII reverence. What began life as a reaction to the orange ribbons of Ukraine’s revolution has become the ultimate symbol of the entire Putin era.

Why is Putin so obsessed with Ukraine, and what was it about the country’s Orange Revolution that triggered him so irreversibly? The answers to these questions lie in Putin’s imperialistic understanding of Russian identity and his formative political experiences as a KGB officer in Eastern Europe during the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

Putin was in East Germany in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. He watched helplessly as the entire Soviet presence throughout the region crumbled amid a surge in pro-democracy protests. In his own account of this traumatic time, Putin claims that his stunned superiors informed him, “Moscow is silent.” This experience has haunted Putin and left him convinced that Moscow must never be “silent” again, especially when confronted by mass protest movements or attempts to shake off Kremlin control.

Putin is particularly sensitive to modern Ukraine’s national awakening and its embrace of European democracy because he views the country as part of Russia’s imperial heartlands. If a democratic political culture can take root in a place as central to Russia’s national identity as Ukraine, this could prove contagious and serve as a catalyst for similar demands within Russia itself.

Tellingly, Putin first began to indicate his opposition to Ukrainian independence soon after the Orange Revolution. In April 2005, he had recent events in Ukraine very much in mind when he branded the fall of the USSR “the greatest political catastrophe of the twentieth century.” This is apparent from some of the lesser quoted segments of his speech, which also referenced an “epidemic of disintegration” and bemoaned the fate of the “tens of millions of countrymen” who found themselves beyond the borders of Russia in 1991. At the time, Ukraine was home to by far the largest population of ethnic Russians in the former Soviet Union.

Little has changed during the intervening twenty years. Today’s ongoing Russian invasion is a direct result of Putin’s firm conviction that the loss of Ukraine would pose an existential threat to Russia itself. It is therefore delusional to suggest that some kind of limited territorial settlement could end the current war and lead to a sustainable peace. Any attempt to offer concessions will only result in a temporary pause in hostilities before Putin resumes his campaign to extinguish Ukrainian statehood.

Vladimir Putin’s efforts to reassert Russian control over Ukraine date back to the 2004 Orange Revolution and have now escalated from political interference to the bloodiest European war for generations. He sees the destruction of the Ukrainian state as his historic mission and believes the fate of Russia hinges on his success. In such circumstances, talk of compromising with the Kremlin is futile. Instead, peace will only be possible if Putin can be convinced that Ukrainian independence is irreversible.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Russia’s evolving information war poses a growing threat to the West

Kateryna Odarchenko, Elena Davlikanova — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 21:03:15 +0000

A number of Western officials and security agencies have recently warned of the growing challenges posed by Russian hybrid warfare. This threat is not new, of course. The Kremlin has long been engaged in acts of hybrid aggression against the West, with information warfare playing a central role in Moscow’s efforts to destabilize its democratic adversaries. With geopolitical tension now rising amid a jockeying for position ahead of anticipated Ukraine peace talks in early 2025, Russian information attacks look set to intensify.

It is important to acknowledge that Russian information warfare is highly innovative and continues to evolve at a rapid pace. Russia’s information offensives initially focused on the Kremlin’s own media platforms such as RT and Sputnik, but these outlets have proven relatively easy to identify, discredit, and restrict. In recent years, Russia has increasingly sought to promote its narratives via partners and proxies, as the recent scandal involving prominent US podcasters highlighted.

The pioneering use of social media troll farms to fuel divisions and distort public opinion remains a major component of Russian information warfare. In addition, the Kremlin engages in the large-scale creation of fake websites mimicking prominent news outlets, adding a veneer of credibility to Russian disinformation.

Russian narratives are also evolving. In 2022, the Kremlin’s attempts to depict Ukraine as a Nazi state largely failed to connect with international audiences, who struggled to understand how a country with a popularly elected Jewish president and no far-right presence in government could be in need of “de-Nazification.” Instead, Moscow has turned its attention to promoting the decline of the West and the need for a new multipolar world order.

Through a wide variety of traditional and digital media initiatives, the Kremlin has sought to highlight economic problems in Europe and North America, while pushing the idea of growing Western public dissatisfaction over issues such as identity politics and minority rights. Meanwhile, Russia positions itself as a bastion of traditional family values, social stability, and conservatism. This has struck a chord with alienated segments of society throughout the West.

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The Global South is currently a priority front in Russia’s information war. With the invasion of Ukraine leaving Russia isolated from the West, the Kremlin has reoriented its foreign policy toward the non-Western world. In its messaging to audiences across the Global South, Russia plays on historical resentment at centuries of Western colonialism and portrays itself as a fellow victim of the West. Despite Russia’s long history of imperial aggression and openly imperialistic ambitions in Ukraine, Putin has sought to win over audiences in Africa, Asia, and South America by posing as a defender against Western imperialism.

It would be foolish to dismiss Russia’s anti-imperial messaging as absurd. Older generations across the Global South are often aware of the role played by the Soviet Union in the decolonization movement that followed World War II. Others have little knowledge of the imperial ambitions underpinning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and tend base their opinions on Putin primarily on his opposition to the West. This is helping to shape the geopolitical outlook throughout the Global South and is creating a range of foreign policy challenges for the West that expand far beyond the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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Another key element of the Kremlin’s disinformation campaign is the claim that NATO enlargement represents a direct security threat to the Russian Federation and is the real cause of the war in Ukraine. This argument resonates loudly with international audiences suspicious of the West’s dominant role in world affairs. While other Russian attempts to justify the invasion of Ukraine have fallen flat, attempts to blame NATO have proved highly effective.

In reality, Putin seems well aware that NATO doesn’t pose a threat to Russia. Tellingly, he raised no serious objections in 2022 when neighboring Finland and Sweden announced their intention to join the alliance, despite the fact that this would more than double Russia’s NATO borders and transform the strategically crucial Baltic Sea into a NATO lake. Indeed, he has since withdrawn most Russian troops from the country’s Finnish frontier. Evidently, Putin’s expansionist foreign policy reflects his opposition to Ukrainian independence rather than any artificial fears over NATO expansion.

Putin’s NATO narrative may not stand up to scrutiny, but it is likely to play an important role in any upcoming peace talks, with Russia currently pushing for an end to NATO enlargement and a firm commitment to permanent Ukrainian neutrality. This would be potentially disastrous for international security. A neutral Ukraine would be highly vulnerable to further Russian aggression and eventual occupation. Meanwhile, rising anti-NATO sentiment in the US and elsewhere risks undermining transatlantic cooperation and fostering isolationism.

The West must trend carefully when attempting to confront Russian disinformation. Crucially, any efforts to moderate content on social media or impose restrictions on even the most openly propagandistic of platforms invites accusations of censorship. With this in mind, Western governments must walk a fine line as they seek to protect themselves against the Kremlin’s information warfare while safeguarding freedom of expression.

Given the transnational nature of the modern information landscape, international cooperation is essential when attempting to combat Russian disinformation. Looking ahead, the Western response should include the creation of collaborative task forces, real-time intelligence sharing, and coordinated efforts to sanction state and private actors. Western policymakers must also match the Kremlin in terms of versatility and innovation if they wish to keep their countries safe in an increasingly complex and interconnected information environment. Putin’s Russia has demonstrated the importance of the information front in modern warfare. It is time for the West to catch up.

Kateryna Odarchenko is a partner at SIC Group Ukraine. Elena Davlikanova is a fellow at CEPA.

Imposing neutrality on Ukraine will not stop Putin or bring peace to Europe

Mykola Bielieskov — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 02:12:55 +0000

With Donald Trump’s election win fueling fresh speculation over the prospects for a negotiated settlement to the Russo-Ukrainian War, Russian President Vladimir Putin has once again underlined his insistence on Ukrainian neutrality. “If there is no neutrality, it is difficult to imagine any good-neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine,” he commented on November 7 in Sochi.

This is nothing new. Since the eve of the full-scale invasion, the Kremlin has been consistent in its calls for permanent Ukrainian neutrality. Neutral status was a key condition set out by the Kremlin during the abortive peace talks that took place in the first weeks of the war. It once again featured prominently when Putin laid out an updated peace proposal in June 2024.

Many in the international community regard Putin’s push for a neutral Ukraine as by far his most reasonable demand. Indeed, some have even accused NATO of provoking the current war by expanding into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence since 1991 and deepening cooperation with Ukraine. They argue that if Ukraine can be kept in geopolitical no-man’s-land, Russia will be placated.

Such thinking is likely to feature prominently as the debate continues to unfold in the coming months over the terms of a future peace deal. While Trump has yet to outline his plans for a possible settlement, unconfirmed reports suggest that a twenty-year freeze on Ukraine’s NATO membership aspirations is under consideration. This would be a costly blunder. Imposing neutrality on Ukraine will not bring about a durable peace in Europe. On the contrary, it would leave Ukraine at Putin’s mercy and set the stage for a new Russian invasion.

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Ukrainians have already learned the hard way that neutrality does not protect them against Russian aggression. The country officially embraced non-aligned status during the 2010-2014 presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, but this didn’t prevent Moscow from seeking to reassert full control over Ukraine. Initially, Russia’s efforts focused on orchestrating Ukraine’s economic reintegration through membership of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union. When this sparked a popular backlash that led to the fall of the Yanukovych regime, Putin opted to use force and began the military invasion of Ukraine.

Ever since the start of Russia’s attack on Ukraine in spring 2014, Putin has sought to justify Russian aggression by pointing to the looming danger of Ukrainian NATO membership. In reality, however, Ukraine has never looked like progressing toward the distant goal of joining the alliance. For the past decade, NATO leaders have refused to provide Kyiv with an invitation and have instead limited themselves to vague talk of Ukraine’s “irreversible” path toward future membership. Putin is well aware of this, but has chosen to wildly exaggerate Ukraine’s NATO prospects in order to strengthen his own bogus justifications.

Putin’s complaints regarding NATO enlargement are equally dubious. Indeed, his own actions since early 2022 indicate that Putin himself does not actually believe that the alliance poses a genuine security threat to Russia. Instead, he merely exploits the NATO issue as a convenient smokescreen for Russia’s expansionist foreign policy.

Tellingly, when Finland and Sweden responded to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine by announcing plans to abandon decades of neutrality and join NATO, Putin was quick to declare that Russia had “no problem” with the move. This evident indifference was particularly striking, given that Finnish NATO membership has more than doubled Russia’s NATO border while Sweden’s accession has transformed the Baltic Sea into a NATO lake. Over the past two-and-a-half years, Putin has continued to demonstrate his almost complete lack of concern over NATO’s Nordic enlargement by withdrawing the vast majority of Russian troops from the Finnish border and leaving the area largely undefended.

Putin obviously understands perfectly well that NATO is not a threat to Russia itself, and sees no need to guard against a NATO invasion that he knows will never come. While Putin’s resentment over the expanding NATO presence on his borders is real enough, he only really objects when the alliance prevents Russia from bullying its neighbors. In other words, Putin’s opposition to Ukraine’s NATO aspirations has nothing to do with legitimate security concerns. Instead, it confirms that his ultimate goal is the destruction of Ukrainian statehood.

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For years, Putin has made no secret of his belief that the emergence of an independent Ukraine is an historical mistake and a symbol of modern Russia’s retreat from empire. He has repeatedly claimed that Ukraine is not a “real country,” and is fond of declaring that Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”). In July 2021, Putin even published an entire essay arguing against the legitimacy of an independent Ukrainian state.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, it has become increasingly apparent that Putin’s ultimate goal is not Ukraine’s neutrality but Ukraine’s destruction. The Kremlin propaganda machine has portrayed Ukraine as an intolerable “anti-Russia,” and has promoted the idea that Ukraine’s continued existence is incompatible with Russian security. Meanwhile, Putin has compared his invasion to eighteenth century Russian ruler Peter the Great’s imperial conquests, and has repeatedly claimed to be “returning” historically Russian lands.

Putin’s imperialistic outbursts must be taken seriously. Throughout occupied Ukraine, his soldiers and administrators are already imposing a reign of terror that directly echoes the criminal logic of his imperial fantasies. Millions have been displaced, with thousands more simply vanishing into a vast network of camps and prisons. Those who remain face policies of relentless Russification and the suppression of all things Ukrainian. Adults must accept Russian citizenship in order to access basic services, while children are forced to undergo indoctrination in schools teaching a new Kremlin curriculum.

The crimes currently taking place in Russian-occupied Ukraine are a clear indication of what awaits the rest of the country if Putin succeeds. Despite suffering multiple military setbacks, he remains fully committed to his maximalist goals of ending Ukrainian independence and erasing Ukrainian identity.

Furthermore, since 2022 Putin has demonstrated that he is prepared to wait as long as it takes in order to overcome Ukrainian resistance, and is ready to pay almost any price to achieve his imperial ambitions. Imposing neutrality on Ukraine in such circumstances would be akin to condemning the country to a slow but certain death.

Any peace process that fails to provide Ukraine with credible long-term security guarantees is doomed to fail. Acquiescing to Putin’s demands for a neutral Ukraine may provide some short-term relief from the menace of an expansionist Russia, but this would ultimately lead to more war and the likely collapse of the current global security order. There is simply no plausible argument for insisting on Ukrainian neutrality other than a desire to leave the country defenseless and at Russia’s mercy.

Peace will only come once Putin has finally been forced to accept Ukraine’s right to exist as an independent country and as a member of the democratic world. Naturally, this includes the right to choose security alliances. It is absurd to prioritize Russia’s insincere security concerns over Ukraine’s very real fears of national annihilation. Instead, if serious negotiations do begin in the coming months, Ukrainian security must be the number one priority. Until Ukraine is secure, Europe will remain insecure and the threat of Russian imperialism will continue to loom over the continent.

Despite the histrionics in Moscow, this week’s US move to allow limited strikes on Russian territory is unlikely to transform the battlefield or spark a world war. The scope for potential strikes is far too narrow, while Russia has already had more than enough time to move the most interesting targets well out of range. The real significance of Biden’s green light lies in what it tells us about the diminishing impact of Vladimir Putin’s red lines.

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Ever since the very first hours of the invasion, Putin has been using thinly veiled threats to intimidate the West into inaction. This approach has proved highly effective, with risk-averse Western leaders delaying arms deliveries to Ukraine and imposing absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons that have left many in Kyiv exasperated. However, as the war has progressed, Putin’s red lines have repeatedly been crossed without consequence, leading many to conclude that the Russian dictator has been bluffing all along.

Putin’s first big bluff came during his official address announcing the attack on Ukraine, when he warned Western leaders that any attempts to interfere would result in consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history.” Three days later, he hammered the point home by placing Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert. When a coalition of Western nations chose to ignore these warnings and began arming Ukraine, there was no nuclear escalation.

Six months later, Putin unveiled plans to annex four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces and vowed to use “all means at our disposal” to defend Russia’s conquests. “I’m not bluffing,” he declared. The Ukrainians were unimpressed by this nuclear saber-rattling and continued offensive operations in all four provinces. Within weeks they had liberated Kherson, the only Ukrainian regional capital captured by Russia during the invasion. This was a very personal humiliation for Putin, who had just pronounced the city “Russian forever.” Nevertheless, he did not reach for his nuclear button.

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Putin’s approach to wartime setbacks in Crimea has arguably been even more revealing. Ever since the seizure of the Ukrainian peninsula in spring 2014, the Kremlin has portrayed the conquest of Crimea as Putin’s crowning glory and the basis for his claim to a place in Russian history among the country’s greatest rulers. This led many to assume that he would defend Crimea with particular vigor. Instead, when Ukraine bombed Russia’s Crimean naval headquarters and sank or damaged one-third of Putin’s entire Black Sea Fleet, he quietly ordered his remaining warships to retreat to the safety of Russian ports.

The biggest blow to the credibility of Putin’s threats came in August 2024, when the Ukrainian army crossed the reddest of all red lines by invading Russia itself. Faced with the first foreign occupation of Russian soil since World War II, Putin issued no nuclear ultimatums and made no effort to rally the Russian people against the invader. On the contrary, he downplayed the entire Ukrainian offensive as a mere “provocation,” and ordered the Kremlin-controlled Russian media to minimize the significance of Ukraine’s historic advance.

Despite these very public embarrassments, Putin has clung to his intimidation tactics. Indeed, as the debate over permitting long-range strikes inside Russia gained momentum in September 2024, he actually sought to up the ante by announcing that any decision by the US or European countries to lift restrictions would mean they were “at war” with Russia. Weeks later, he unveiled proposed changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine that lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons and specifically addressed possible long-range missile attacks. In hindsight, this may have been too blatant, even by Russian standards.

Unfortunately for Putin, it appears that even the Biden White House has now concluded that his threats are empty. This is undoubtedly bad news for the Russian war effort. For almost three years, Western leaders have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Putin, and have let fear of escalation define their response to the largest European invasion since World War II. The West’s excessive caution has left the Ukrainian army perpetually short of weapons, and has made it possible for Russia to punch far above its weight in what would otherwise have been a complete military mismatch.

That may now be changing. Biden’s decision to authorize long-range strikes inside Russia will not alter the course of the war, but it does strike a powerful blow against the failed policies of escalation management that have done so much to undermine international support for Ukraine. Putin’s ability to intimidate the West has been his biggest success of the entire war, but it would seem that his bluff has been called once too often and his threats no longer resonate. If other countries now follow Biden and abandon the timidity of the past three years, they may find that Putin suddenly becomes much keener on the idea of a negotiated settlement.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Forcing Ukraine to cede land will only increase Putin’s imperial appetite

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 21:54:31 +0000

Donald Trump’s US presidential election victory has sparked a new round of speculation over the possibility of a compromise deal with the Kremlin to end the war in Ukraine. Many commentators are convinced that some form of Ukrainian territorial concessions are now inevitable. Others insist that trading land for peace is Kyiv’s only option to exit a devastating conflict that is threatening to destroy the Ukrainian nation.

These arguments are certainly not without merit, but anyone now calling for a negotiated settlement that grants Russia control over large parts of Ukraine must also consider the consequences of such an historic step. If the Ukrainian authorities are forced to cede land in exchange for peace, Vladimir Putin’s entire invasion will be legitimized and his imperial appetite will only grow. The West may succeed in securing a temporary respite at Ukraine’s expense, but the threat of an expansionist Russia will remain and the ultimate cost of stopping Putin will only rise.

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The entire notion that Putin could be satisfied by simply freezing the war along the current front lines in southern and eastern Ukraine reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the imperialistic motives behind Russia’s invasion. Putin already rules over what is by far the largest nation on the planet. He has little interest in seizing a handful of Ukrainian regions or adding new land to Russia’s staggering vastness. Instead, Putin’s decisions are shaped by an almost mystical belief in his own historic mission that is beyond the comprehension of many if not most observers in the West.

Putin’s whole political career has been defined by his burning resentment at the perceived injustices of the Soviet collapse. Since the very early years of his reign, it has been apparent that Putin regards the emergence of an independent Ukraine as a particularly painful symbol of Russia’s post-Soviet humiliation. Back in 2005, he had Ukraine very much in mind when he famously described the disintegration of the Soviet Union as the “biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century.” Over the subsequent two decades, Putin has frequently elaborated on his view that Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”) who have no legitimate right to a state of their own.

Putin’s Ukraine obsession is not only a product of his determination to reverse the verdict of 1991. Crucially, he regards modern Ukraine’s efforts to secure a democratic European future as a potential catalyst for the further breakup of the Russian Federation. Like most of his current Kremlin colleagues, Putin’s formative political experience came during the twilight years of the USSR. As a young KGB officer in East Germany, he was on hand to witness the fall of the Berlin Wall and watched in horror as the entire Soviet Empire in Central and Eastern Europe evaporated almost overnight.

This has left Putin with a lifelong dread of people power movements and a profound sense of Russia’s imperial fragility. In light of this backstory, it is hardly surprising that he was so violently triggered by Ukraine’s two post-Soviet revolutions, and so obviously alarmed by the slow but steady consolidation of Kyiv’s democratic credentials. Given the patchwork nature of the Russian Federation, Putin has long been acutely aware that if left unchecked, Ukraine’s strengthening grassroots democracy and successful embrace of self-determination could eventually inspire secession movements and imperial collapse within his own authoritarian realm.

For Putin, therefore, Ukrainian independence represents an existential threat to Russia itself. This explains why he has been prepared to risk everything in order to erase Ukraine from the map. It also makes a mockery of suggestions that he could be bought off by the offer of the Ukrainian regions currently under Russian occupation. Clearly, Putin cannot risk the continued existence of a genuinely independent Ukraine. He must either reassert Russian control over Kyiv, or extinguish Ukrainian statehood altogether.

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Putin’s imperial ambitions are not limited to Ukraine, of course. He routinely describes the current invasion as a quest to return “historically Russian lands,” leaving the door open for further wars of aggression against other former vassals of the Russian Empire including Finland, Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and the whole of Central Asia.

Evidence of this expanding imperial appetite is already visible. When Putin first announced the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he denied having any territorial ambitions beyond the two eastern Ukrainian provinces the make up the Donbas region. Six months later, he announced the annexation of a further two provinces. In summer 2024, Putin confirmed that his claims now extended to the administrative borders of all four provinces, despite the fact that the Russian military had yet to establish complete control over any of them.

None of this is to say that temporary territorial concessions are out of the question. On the contrary, there is growing recognition in Western capitals and in Kyiv that the complete liberation of Ukraine is not militarily feasible in the present circumstances. Nevertheless, it is vital for Ukraine’s partners to understand that any agreement to cease hostilities would not bring an end to the danger. Instead, it would mark the beginning of a new phase in the struggle against Putin’s resurgent Russian Empire. This struggle will require eternal vigilance along with dramatic increases in defense spending throughout the West. Above all, Western leaders must commit to the kind of watertight security guarantees for Ukraine that will make Putin think twice before resuming his criminal crusade for a place in Russian history.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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Since the very first weeks of the invasion, it has been clear that one of Russia’s key war aims is the destruction of Ukrainian national identity. For those currently living under Russian occupation, this means everything from large-scale abductions and mass deportations to ideological indoctrination and blanket Russification.

With occupied areas of Ukraine largely cut off from the outside world, accurate information regarding the scale of the human rights abuses currently taking place remains limited. However, the available evidence indicates that a systematic campaign is underway to silence any potential dissent and impose a reign of terror on the Ukrainian civilian population. “Kremlin-occupied Ukraine is now a totalitarian hell,” Britain’s The Economist reported in early November.

Large numbers of Ukrainians in occupied regions of the country have been subjected to forced deportation or have simply disappeared. An Associated Press investigation in summer 2023 concluded that thousands of Ukrainian civilians are being detained in a network of formal and informal prisons across Russia and the territories it occupies, where they endure torture, psychological abuse, and are even forced to engage in slave labor. “Russia plans to build dozens more prisons,” the report claimed.

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In occupied regions, the Kremlin is working to erase all traces of Ukrainian statehood and seeking to Russify every aspect of daily life. These efforts include renaming streets, turning the clocks back to Moscow time, and pressuring residents to accept Russian citizenship in order to access basic public services such as healthcare and state pensions. Ukrainian schools under Russian occupation now teach a Kremlin-friendly curriculum that demonizes Ukraine while forcing students to celebrate the soldiers invading their country. Parents who resist risk losing custody of their children.

Russian attempts to indoctrinate young Ukrainians are not restricted to the classroom. At least 20,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted from occupied regions since the start of the full-scale invasion, with many sent to a network of camps where they are subjected to indoctrination aimed at depriving them of their Ukrainian nationality and turning them into Russians.

Ukrainian civil society activist Mykola Kuleba, who is at the forefront of efforts to secure the return of young Ukrainians from Russia, has accused the Russian authorities of attempting to brainwash Ukrainian children and erase their identity. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for his alleged role in these mass abductions.

For those detained in Russian-occupied Ukraine, the outlook is particularly grim. In September 2024, the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine reported that the Russian authorities were employing “common patterns of torture” against Ukrainian prisoners in occupied regions of Ukraine as well as in Russia. “Torture has been used as a common and acceptable practice with a sense of impunity,” the report stated.

Western leaders need to recognize that trading land for peace in Ukraine would mean abandoning millions of Ukrainian civilians to the chilling realities of life under Russian occupation. The Kremlin has already provided ample evidence of its intentions in occupied Ukraine and its plans for the local population. The fate of these Ukrainians must not be forgotten as the international debate over a possible negotiated settlement evolves in the coming months.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

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The election was widely seen as a referendum on Georgia’s future geopolitical direction. The country’s Russia-friendly authorities hoped to secure a mandate for a pro-Kremlin manifesto, while opponents sought to return Georgia to the path of Euro-Atlantic integration. This westward trajectory is certainly popular, with polls consistently indicating that around 80 percent of Georgians support the country’s bid for EU membership. At the same time, many have been alarmed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and are fearful of facing the same fate if they attempt to turn away from Moscow.

The Georgian Dream party has been in power since 2012 and is officially committed to supporting European integration. However, party officials in Tbilisi have become increasingly critical of the West in recent years, and have faced mounting accusations of trying to steer the country back into the Kremlin orbit. Criticism has intensified following the adoption earlier this year of draconian laws similar to the authoritarian policies of Putin’s Russia. Critics say these legislative changes are aimed at silencing Georgia’s political opposition and muzzling the country’s civil society.

In the wake of the disputed election, Georgia’s pro-Western political forces have vowed to fight back against what they see as an attempt to undermine their country’s fledgling democracy. A number of large protest rallies have taken place in downtown Tbilisi since the late October ballot. Meanwhile, opposition parties are demanding fresh elections, refusing to serve in the new parliament, and calling on Georgia’s Western partners to conduct an international investigation into allegations of electoral misconduct.

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Russia has refrained from officially celebrating the election victory of its Georgian Dream allies. Instead, Moscow has accused the West of trying to “destabilize” Georgia with calls for an investigation into alleged violations. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that the vote represents a significant geopolitical triumph for the Kremlin and a major setback for the West.

Critics of Georgia’s governing party fear the country may now follow the geopolitical trajectory of Belarus, which in recent years has become increasingly subject to creeping Russian control in every sphere of national life from the economy to defense. This would represent a significant turnaround for Russia, which had looked to be in danger of losing its traditional influence in the southern Caucasus region.

Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and continues to occupy approximately 20 percent of the country. Bilateral relations between Moscow and Tbilisi have remained tense ever since this brief war sixteen years ago. However, while the Georgian public has overwhelmingly backed closer ties with the West, many have also spoken of the need to avoid a resumption of hostilities with Russia. Georgian Dream officials have sought to exploit these concerns over the possibility of a new Russian invasion. During the recent election campaign, the party ran a series of controversial adverts featuring images of wartime destruction in Ukraine along with appeals to “choose peace.”

Some observers believe Russia’s approach to Georgia may offer hints of the Kremlin’s ultimate intentions in Ukraine. After first invading and occupying a large portion of Georgian territory, Russia then helped engineer the election of a sympathetic government that has paid lip service to the country’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations while working toward mending fences with Moscow. This proved possible despite frequent evidence of intense anti-Russian sentiment throughout Georgian society. While such an outcome is extremely hard to imagine in today’s wartime Ukraine, the remarkable revival of Russian influence in Georgia could certainly serve as inspiration for Kremlin policymakers.

Protests look set to continue in Tbilisi. However, it is not clear whether anything can now be done to prove the allegations of election fraud or annul the results of the October vote. Georgia’s Western partners have voiced their concerns over the election but remain reluctant to withhold official recognition. Georgia will be on the agenda when EU foreign ministers meet next week in Brussels, but the European Union is not expected to take a stance on the legitimacy of the election. Instead, the most meaningful sanction will likely be the continued freezing of EU membership talks, which have been on pause since June 2024.

With Western leaders unwilling to confront the Kremlin in the Caucasus, Russia is the real winner of Georgia’s recent elections. The vote has demonstrated Moscow’s ability to overcome popular opposition by forging powerful alliances with local elites and ignoring international concerns over election interference. Russia will doubtless seek to apply the lessons learned in Georgia as it turns its attention to future election campaigns in front line countries like Moldova, and may also seek to adopt a similar approach to postwar Ukraine.

Nicholas Chkhaidze is a research fellow at the Baku-based Topchubashov Center.

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Information operations are a central feature of Russian efforts to weaken the West. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the messaging emanating from Moscow has shifted from implausible accusations of a “Nazi regime” in Kyiv toward a greater focus on the inevitability of Russian military victory and the unreliability of Ukraine as a partner. These messages are being actively promoted throughout the West by Russian sources and by Moscow’s proxies.

For much of the past decade, Russia relied primarily on its own state-sponsored media outlets like RT and Sputnik to push narratives designed to undermine Western unity and polarize public opinion in democratic countries. However, in recent years there have been increasing efforts to co-opt non-traditional media and social media personalities throughout the West, such as US podcast hosts. This has made it possible for Russia to reach broader audiences, while also enhancing the credibility of its messaging by avoiding any overt links to the Kremlin.

Cyberattacks are another significant tactic used by Russia to undermine stability throughout the West. By disrupting communications, sowing chaos, and eroding public trust in institutions, Russian cyber warfare has the potential to disrupt and destabilize Western societies. One recent example was the December 2023 cyberattack on Ukraine’s largest telecommunications provider, which temporarily left millions of subscribers without mobile and internet access.

Russia has also sought to fuel political tensions by supporting populist movements and parties that align with the Kremlin’s own anti-NATO and anti-EU narratives. Throughout Europe and North America, the Kremlin is accused of empowering anti-establishment political parties and movements of all kinds. Moscow’s backing for far-right and far-left movements has been opportunistic rather than ideological, with an emphasis on support for any groups deemed capable of destabilizing domestic politics in Western countries. This approach has proved effective in amplifying the Kremlin’s narratives, while also making it harder to counter Russian influence and maintain support for Ukraine.

A further avenue of malign Russian influence is economic leverage, especially through the weaponized use of energy exports. While Europe’s overall dependence on Russian energy has declined significantly since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, A number of EU countries continue to rely heavily on Russian energy supplies. This makes them vulnerable to political pressure from Moscow.

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Western policymakers need to recognize that the hybrid security challenges currently coming from Russia are not going to go away soon. On the contrary, Putin is clearly preparing his country for a prolonged confrontation with the West. While open military conflict between Russia and NATO is still viewed as unlikely, Western nations must be better prepared to defend themselves against Russia’s escalating efforts to divide and destabilize them. This will require a multi-faceted approach that reflects the diverse nature of the hybrid threats posed by the Putin regime.

Addressing disinformation is vital. Western governments must intensify efforts to combat Russian information warfare by measures including support for fact-checking initiatives and improving media literary among the public. Before embarking on new steps of this nature in the information sphere, it is important to note that Russia has a record of successfully pushing back against countermeasures by framing them as attempts to suppress free speech.

Strengthening cyber defenses is another key task. NATO much invest in the recently announced Integrated Cyber Defence Centre to protect member states from Russian cyberattacks. The alliance should prioritize information sharing, joint cyber security exercises, and the development of rapid response teams to mitigate the impact of future attacks.

The Kremlin’s sophisticated brand of hybrid warfare poses a serious threat to Western unity and represents a critical front in the global confrontation that has emerged following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. By exploiting existing political, economic, and social vulnerabilities across Europe and North America, Russia aims to weaken the West from within. This requires a firm and coordinated response that includes efforts to counter disinformation, strengthen cyber defenses, and reduce energy dependence on Russia. Addressing these challenges is crucial for the future of transatlantic security in an increasingly complex and unpredictable geopolitical climate.

Doug Livermore is the National Vice President for the Special Operations Association of America, Senior Vice President for Solution Engineering at the CenCore Group, and the Deputy Commander for Special Operations Detachment – Joint Special Operations Command in the North Carolina Army National Guard. The views expressed are the author’s and do not represent official US Government, Department of Defense, or Department of the Army positions.

The most detailed and revealing segment of the draft peace treaty dealt with Ukraine’s demilitarization. Russia called for the Ukrainian army to be drastically reduced to a skeleton force of just fifty thousand personnel. This was approximately one-fifth of the prewar total and a tiny fraction of Ukraine’s current military, which is believed to number around one million soldiers. Meanwhile, tight restrictions were to be imposed on the quantity of armor Ukraine could possess, the types of missiles the country could develop, and the size of the Ukrainian Air Force.

The Kremlin’s peace plan also obliged Ukraine to renounce its NATO membership ambitions and agree not to enter into bilateral alliances or seek military aid from Western countries. In later drafts dating from the final stages of the abortive peace process in April 2022, Russia also somewhat absurdly insisted on a veto over any international response to future attacks on Ukraine. If Ukraine’s leaders had accepted Moscow’s thinly veiled ultimatum, the country would have been disarmed and defenseless.

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While Russia’s demands were obviously unacceptable, this has not stopped Putin from repeatedly pointing to the failed negotiations of spring 2022 as proof that he seeks a peaceful settlement to the war. Furthermore, he has suggested on numerous occasions that the terms outlined in Belarus and Istanbul during the initial phase of Russia’s invasion should remain the basis for any negotiated peace agreement.

Far from representing a viable vision for a sustainable peace, Putin’s 2022 proposal actually underlines his commitment to extinguishing Ukrainian statehood and erasing Ukraine from the map entirely. Cut off from Western military aid and without an army of its own, an emasculated and demoralized rump Ukraine would be in no position to offer any serious resistance if Russia chose to renew the invasion.

There can be little doubt that this was Putin’s plan. Whether his end goal was the complete conquest of the country or the installation of a puppet government, it is virtually impossible to imagine an independent Ukrainian state surviving very long in such desperate circumstances. Instead, much of Ukraine would likely be annexed outright, with the remaining territory entrusted to Kremlin loyalists.

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The peace terms proposed by Russia in 2022 and subsequently reiterated by Putin himself make a mockery of suggestions that Ukraine could end the invasion by entering into some kind of land-for-peace compromise with the Kremlin. Putin’s war aims clearly extend far beyond the approximately twenty percent of Ukraine that is now under Russian occupation, and involve the takeover of the entire country along with the systematic suppression of Ukrainian identity.

This raises difficult questions for the growing chorus of voices calling for a negotiated settlement based on the current front lines of the war. Crucially, anyone who believes Putin would be satisfied with his present gains must explain why he remains so insistent on Ukraine’s disarmament. After all, this cannot possibly be justified on the grounds of Russian national security. Indeed, no serious analyst would argue that Ukraine poses a credible military threat to the far larger and infinitely mightier Russian Federation.

The only plausible reason to disarm Ukraine is to render the whole country defenseless and leave it at Putin’s mercy. This should tell you all you need to know about his true intentions and the scale of his imperial ambitions. From the very beginning, Putin has viewed the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as an historic mission that will define his personal place in Russian history and Russia’s place in the modern world. Attempting to appease him with limited territorial concessions would be both dishonorable and delusional, and would set the stage for further Russian aggression in Ukraine and beyond.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Emerson T. Brooking (@etbrooking): Director of strategy and resident senior fellow at the DFRLab
Dina Sadek (@DinaMSadek): Resident fellow at the DFRLab
Graham Brookie (@GrahamBrookie): Atlantic Council vice president for technology programs and strategy, and senior director of the DFRLab
Kenton Thibaut (@kentonthibaut): Senior resident China fellow at the DFRLab

Tipping the scale

“By sheer volume, foreign interference in the 2024 US election has already surpassed the scale of adversarial operations in both 2016 and 2020,” Emerson says.
Dina notes that each US adversary played to its strengths. For example, Iran and China “attempted to breach presidential campaigns in hack-and-leak operations that raise concerns about their cyber capabilities during and after the elections,” she tells us.
At the same time, the United States is more prepared than it was in previous election cycles. Russian efforts in 2016 “made foreign interference a vivid fear for millions of Americans,” Emerson notes. “Eight years later, the US government is denouncing and neutralizing these efforts, sometimes in real time.”
In fact, Graham tells us, “the combined actions by the US departments of Justice, Treasury, and State against two known Russian interference efforts was the largest proactive government action taken against election influence efforts before an election.”

Doppelgangers and down-ballot races

US officials this week called Russia “the most active threat,” and it’s easy to understand why. Emerson notes Russia’s “ten-million-dollar effort to infiltrate and influence far-right American media,” alongside the “Doppelganger” network, which has spread “tens of thousands of false stories and staged videos intended to undermine election integrity in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona.” Increasingly desperate, Russian actors have even sought to shut down individual polling places with fake bomb threats, he adds.
Meanwhile, China has focused on “down-ballot races instead of the presidential election to target specific anti-China politicians,” Kenton explains. Using fake American personas and generative artificial intelligence, China-linked operations have appeared across more than fifty platforms. Perhaps surprisingly, Kenton adds, “attributed campaigns appeared sparingly” on the Chinese-owned platform TikTok and far more often on Facebook and X.

Faith, fakes, and falsehoods

“The primary aim is to erode Americans’ faith in democratic institutions and heighten chaos and social division,” Kenton explains, and thus to undermine the ability of the US government to function so it will have less bandwidth to contain adversarial powers.
“Some of the fake and already debunked narratives and footage circulating before the elections will likely continue to be amplified by foreign threat actors well after November 5,” Dina predicts. Expect to see activity around the submission of certificates of ascertainment on December 11, the December 17 meeting of the electors to formally cast their votes, and through inauguration day on January 20.
And in a post-election period where the results will likely be contested, Graham thinks there’s a “high likelihood” that foreign actors will “cross a serious threshold” from pre-election attempts to broadly influence American public opinion in service of their geopolitical interests to “direct interference” by trying to mobilize Americans to engage in protests or even violence.
Nevertheless, Graham points out that the high volume of foreign-influence efforts observed during this year’s election cycle so far does not appear to have had a significant impact in terms of changing Americans’ opinions or behavior.
The consequences of foreign disinformation, Emerson adds, should be assessed against “the far more viral, sophisticated, and dangerous election-day falsehoods that Americans spread among themselves.”

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Why this former Finnish president wants a new European spy agency

Piotr Arak — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 16:30:29 +0000

Europe has seen report after report on how to bolster its defenses and enhance its readiness in an increasingly unpredictable world. The most recent of these comes from Sauli Niinistö, the former president of Finland and now a special adviser to the president of the European Commission. Published on October 30, this report, alongside others like the much-discussed Mario Draghi paper on European competitiveness, lays out a number of familiar, albeit urgent, calls for action. Will it be different this time? Will Europe follow through on these recommendations?

Notably, one of Niinistö’s top recommendations goes a step beyond usual European diplomatic rhetoric: the creation of a unified European Union (EU) intelligence service. “As a long-term objective, the EU should have a fully-fledged intelligence cooperation service, serving all EU institutions and Member States,” he writes in the report. However, he goes on to note that its aim “should not be to emulate the tasks of Member States’ national foreign intelligence and domestic security services, nor to interfere with their prerogative on national security.”

Instead, Niinistö suggests strengthening the EU’s Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity, which includes both the EU Intelligence and Situation Centre and EU military intelligence within the EU Military Staff under the European External Action Service, the diplomatic service of the EU. Both entities operate under the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, and former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas is the designate for this position. This framework should serve as an official channel for intelligence exchange among the EU’s intelligence services. The need for such a channel was made clear following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and China’s pledge of a “no limits” relationship with Russia, which underscored how ill unprepared the EU was for the emerging challenges posed by Moscow and Beijing.

In practice, this would mean deeper, more structured cooperation among member states to share intelligence and respond faster to hybrid threats, such as cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. This recommendation acknowledges the reality that Europe’s security challenges demand something stronger than piecemeal national efforts or ad hoc alliances, as the hybrid attack on the Finnish, Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian borders made clear.

Many Russian and Chinese diplomats have been expelled from European capitals due to espionage allegations, while Brussels, home to numerous institutions and embassies, has become a hub for covert activities. The war in Ukraine has further fueled instability within the EU, with incidents ranging from drones surveilling military training areas and assassination plots against arms industry executives to sabotage. Western nations already collaborate on intelligence through the Five Eyes alliance, which links the agencies of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Niinistö emphasized that any EU intelligence body should focus on leveraging and effectively utilizing existing intelligence.

More civil-military coordination

Another standout from the report is Niinistö’s call for a European Civil Defence Mechanism to bridge the gap between military and civilian responses. The war in Ukraine has shown that keeping essential services running during conflict is just as crucial as maintaining military strength.

The report points out that Europe needs to move past its fragmented approach and ensure that when a crisis hits, military and civilian authorities are coordinated. This isn’t just theory; it’s the kind of readiness that can save lives and stabilize societies.

Public-private partnerships

The COVID-19 pandemic was a crash course in why private sector involvement is indispensable in a crisis. During the pandemic, partnerships with private companies were essential for vaccine development and distribution.

In his report, Niinistö argues that these lessons need to be expanded to broader crisis preparedness. This means developing clear rules for public-private cooperation, especially in industries vital for crisis response such as energy, medicine, and transportation.

Stockpiles and supply chains

Europe’s supply chain issues during recent crises exposed a major weakness. In response, Niinistö calls for a comprehensive EU-level stockpiling strategy to prevent future shortages.

Coordinating reserves across public and private sectors can buffer against disruptions, whether they come from geopolitical tensions or natural disasters. An EU-wide stockpiling strategy is practical, overdue, and aligns with similar calls in Draghi’s economic competitiveness report.

Getting citizens on board

Preparedness isn’t just a government affair; it’s a societal effort. Currently, only 32 percent of Europeans indicate that they would be willing to defend their country if it were involved in a war.

The Niinistö report stresses that Europeans need to be informed, engaged, and prepared at a personal level. Encouraging citizens to take an active role, from learning basic crisis management to preparing for power outages, is part of a realistic resilience plan.

Another report, but what next?

Reports like Niinistö’s and Draghi’s outline clear paths forward, but their effectiveness depends on political will and follow-through. In Niinistö’s report, the ambitions are clearly outlined: intelligence cooperation, military-civil readiness, and crisis preparedness. Niinistö’s report will contribute to the agenda of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s upcoming term, during which the EU is set to appoint its first defense commissioner (former Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius). This new role will include the responsibility of preparing a comprehensive defense white paper, expected to be unveiled by next spring.

What Europe needs now is to move past endless discussions and start implementing real, measurable actions. If these ideas remain only on paper, Europe’s preparedness will continue to lag behind the evolving threats it faces.

Piotr Arak is an assistant professor of economic sciences at the University of Warsaw and chief economist at VeloBank Poland.

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Russia’s economy is overheating but Putin cannot change course

Alexander Mertens — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:07:49 +0000

Russia’s Central Bank raised its key policy rate to 21 percent in late October as the Russian authorities struggle to manage a wartime economy that is in danger of overheating due to a combination of factors including rising inflation, sanctions pressure, and record defense sector spending. While Kremlin officials and many international analysts insist that the Russian economy remains in remarkably good shape, the country’s longer term economic outlook is becoming increasingly precarious.

Despite frequent predictions of impending economic meltdown, there is currently little sign that the Russian economy is in immediate danger. At the same time, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine appears to have placed Vladimir Putin in an unenviable economic position. If the war continues for an extended period and is accompanied by factors including increased sanctions, inefficient military leadership, and pervasive corruption, this could plunge Russia into a severe economic recession.

Ending the conflict also presents economic risks. Russia’s unprecedented military spending since 2022 has enriched elites and boosted domestic demand, overheating the economy. If the war ends, this fiscal stimulus will cease, potentially causing a significant drop in real incomes for much of the population. This could lead to heightened social tensions and undermine the stability of the ruling regime.

Vladimir Putin frequently claims that Western sanctions have been counterproductive and often uses his public addresses to boast of Russia’s wartime economic performance. Official data broadly supports this narrative, with Russia reporting strong GDP growth in 2023 and during the first half of the current year.

A range of factors are fueling the current growth of the Russian economy, with military expenditure perhaps the single most important driver. The Russian authorities allocated around six percent of GDP for the military in 2024, representing the highest total since the Cold War. Further increases are planned for 2025. Nor does this cover all war-related costs. Significant additional spending is required to fund a range of defense-related industries and to finance the occupation of Ukrainian regions currently under Kremlin control.

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Despite the outward appearance of stability, Russia’s wartime economy faces mounting challenges. Russia’s National Welfare Fund is steadily dwindling, while export revenues have gradually declined during 2024 as a result of tightening sanctions and constraints on resource extraction caused by limited access to modern technologies.

Economists are now warning that the Russian economy is in danger of overheating, largely as a result of unprecedented military spending. Meanwhile, Russia’s low unemployment rate of around 2.5 percent is more indicative of a severe labor shortage than a healthy economy. The problems caused by this lack of workforce add to the challenges created by sanctions-related restrictions on access to Western equipment, exacerbating Russia’s technological deficit.

Inflation currently poses the single greatest threat to Putin’s wartime economy, and was a key factor behind the recent decision to hike the country’s key interest rate. Russia’s Central Bank aims to reduce inflation to around four percent in 2025, but this may not be a realistic target. Indeed, official inflation data from the Kremlin may actually underestimate the rising cost of living for ordinary Russians.

Over the past year, even official Russian government bodies such as Rosstat have cautiously acknowledged negative economic trends such as rising inflation, labor shortages, and declining activity in some sectors of the economy. Taken together, these negative factors are likely to contribute to a period of slower growth, if not stagnation.

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The impact of Western sanctions on the Russian economy remains hotly debated. While the sanctions imposed in response to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine have yet to produce the kind of economic crisis that many analysts were anticipating in early 2022, the effectiveness of these measures remains difficult to quantify and should not be dismissed. Tellingly, while Putin insists sanctions have not hurt Russia, the lifting of all sanctions remains a key Kremlin demand.

Sanctions have clearly complicated the situation for Russian exports and for the import of technologies. However, Russia has been able to find numerous ways of bypassing or otherwise mitigating the effects of many restrictions. Russia’s economically vital energy exports have been redirected from the West to the Global South, with a shadow fleet of tankers playing a crucial role in this process.

Similarly, Russia has been able to continue accessing military technologies and equipment by importing via third party countries including China. This has created some inconvenience and led to rising costs, but it has prevented sanctions from achieving the desired goal of isolating the Russian economy and depriving Putin’s war machine of essential components.

A number of additional factors have further blunted the impact of sanctions. These include slow implementation and the continued existence of multiple loopholes. Restrictions on capital transfers have also played into the Kremlin’s hands, keeping wealth within Russia.

Many Russians have clearly benefited financially from the war. Military contracts have proved particularly lucrative for the country’s business elite, while the departure of Western companies has created vacant niches for Russian companies to fill.

Ordinary Russian citizens have been able to earn unprecedented sums of money by enlisting in the military, with the families of soldiers killed or wounded in Ukraine receiving substantial payments. Those working in factories servicing the war effort have also seen salaries increase as much as five times amid surging demand and labor scarcity. Overall, the invasion of Ukraine has enabled millions of Russians to pull themselves out of poverty.

The economic benefits enjoyed by a wide range of social groups in Russia as a result of the war have helped foster pro-war sentiment and bolster support for the Putin regime. Ending the invasion of Ukraine would therefore potentially weaken the position of the authorities and fuel instability. This creates further incentives to continue the war.

The current state of the Russian economy is far from critical but it does present Putin with a dilemma. He currently appears intent on continuing the war indefinitely while hoping to outlast the West and exhaust Ukraine. Alternatively, he could seek to move toward a settlement of some kind. However, there is a very real danger that either option could end up plunging Russia into a serious economic crisis.

If Putin opts to maintain his uncompromising push for an historic victory in Ukraine, it is not clear that Russia has the resources to wage a prolonged war on the present scale. In this scenario, current warning signs such as rising inflation and labor shortages could eventually become major problems. If he seeks a settlement and withdraws the Keynesian crutch of today’s vastly inflated military spending, the economic repercussions could be dire. The Russian economy is not yet close to collapse, but it is increasingly dependent on wartime conditions and faces growing risks of overheating.

Alexander Mertens is professor of finance at National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and professor of economics and finance at Kyiv’s International Institute of Business. With special thanks to Oleksiy Zagorodnyuk for his help with data research and analysis.

Others noted that while the Derzhprom building had managed to emerge relatively unscathed from the carnage of World War II when Kharkiv repeatedly witnessed intense battles between Nazi and Soviet forces, it had now joined the long list of Ukrainian landmarks and sites of cultural significance to be damaged or destroyed by Russia’s invasion. “If we look back at World War II, even Hitler couldn’t do what the Russians have done,” commented Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov.

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Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has included hundreds of targeted attacks on Ukrainian heritage sites across the country. By the middle of October 2024, UNESCO officials had verified damage to 457 sites including churches, museums, monuments, and libraries. This figure may only represent a fraction of the real total, however. Crucially, it does not include the systematic destruction of Ukrainian heritage sites throughout regions of Ukraine currently under Russian occupation.

Attacks on Ukraine’s heritage sites are one element of the Kremlin’s broader efforts to erase Ukrainian national identity. Russian President Vladimir Putin has set the tone with his regular denials of Ukraine’s right to exist and insistence that Ukrainians are in fact Russians (“one people”). Since the invasion of Ukraine began in 2014, areas that have fallen under Kremlin control have been declared “historically Russian” and subjected to ruthless policies of russification. This has included the exclusion of the Ukrainian language, the suppression of Ukrainian history, and the methodical removal of all symbols of Ukrainian statehood.

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Russia’s war on Ukrainian identity has included the abduction and indoctrination of large numbers of Ukrainian children. Since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, thousands of Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia and sent to camps where they are subjected to Soviet-style “re-education” to rob them of their Ukrainian heritage and impose a Russian imperial identity. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges related to these mass abductions.

Over the past two-and-a-half years, the international community has become increasingly aware of Russia’s intention to eradicate Ukrainian identity. The goals of Russia’s invasion go far beyond capturing Ukrainian territory and extend to the “gradual destruction of a whole cultural life,” United Nations special rapporteur for cultural rights Alexandra Xanthaki told the New York Times in December 2022. “One of the justifications of the war is that Ukrainians don’t have a distinct cultural identity,” she noted.

By targeting Ukrainian heritage sites, Moscow is underlining its determination to not only reestablish political control over Ukraine, but to erase the very markers of a separate Ukrainian identity that challenge the Kremlin’s imperialistic vision of the country as a core part of Russia itself. Throughout his reign, Putin has championed the “historical unity” of Russia and Ukraine, and has described today’s Ukraine as “an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.” Continued attacks on prominent Ukrainian landmarks are a reminder that the Kremlin dictator remains committed to realizing his chilling goal of a Ukraine without Ukrainians.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Moldovan and Georgian elections highlight Russia’s regional ambitions

Katherine Spencer — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 21:31:52 +0000

Georgians go to the polls this weekend in a parliamentary election that is widely expected to determine whether the country will pursue integration with Moscow or the West. This closely mirrors the situation in Moldova, where voters face a similar choice on November 3 when the country holds the second round of its presidential election.

Allegations of undue Russian influence have overshadowed the ongoing election campaigns in Georgia and Moldova, highlighting the geopolitical significance of both votes. Critics have accused Moscow of engaging in everything from disinformation to voter bribery as part of Russian efforts to promote Kremlin-friendly candidates.

The first round of voting in Moldova took place last weekend and featured a separate referendum on enshrining the country’s European aspirations in their constitution, which voters backed by a razor-thin margin. Moldova’s pro-EU President Maia Sandu responded to this close win by suggesting that the Kremlin was engaged in a comprehensive campaign of election interference. “We have won the first battle in a difficult fight that will determine the future of our country,” she commented. “We fought fairly and won justly in an unjust struggle.”

Sandu’s claims of Russian meddling received prompt and strongly-worded backing from Brussels and Washington. Moldova’s presidential election and EU referendum campaigns had been marked by “really unprecedented intimidation and foreign interference by Russia and its proxies,” EU officials commented on Monday.

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The outlook ahead of this Saturday’s Georgian parliamentary vote is similar with one key difference: The country’s pro-Kremlin Georgian Dream party has already been in power for the past twelve years and is now looking to secure a mandate for its increasingly open advocacy of closer ties with Russia.

Officially, at least, the Georgian Dream party remains committed to furthering Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration. However, opponents claim that in practice, the party is becoming increasingly aligned with the Kremlin. They accuse the current authorities of passing authoritarian legislation such as a Russian-style “foreign agent law” that threatens to muzzle Georgia’s vibrant civil society.

The Georgian Dream political party was founded by the country’s richest man, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who reportedly has extensive business ties to Russia. In recent months, Ivanishvili has attempted to attract voters by warning that election victory for his pro-Western opponents could lead to renewed hostilities with Russia, which continues to occupy around twenty percent of Georgia. “We choose peace, not war,” he told a rally in Tbilisi on Wednesday.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has cast a long shadow over Georgia’s parliamentary elections. During the final weeks of the campaign, Georgian Dream officials sparked controversy by unveiling a series of adverts juxtaposing grim photos of war-torn Ukraine with bright images of a peaceful and prosperous Georgia. “I have never seen anything so shameful, so offensive to our culture, traditions, history, and beliefs,” commented Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili.

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The election interference tactics Russia is currently accused of employing in Moldova and Georgia echo earlier Kremlin efforts to manipulate Ukraine’s fledgling democracy and prevent the country from turning westward. Prior to the onset of Russian military aggression against Ukraine in 2014, Moscow had attempted to use a wide range of tools including bribery, information warfare, and political violence to stop Kyiv exiting the Kremlin orbit. When all these measures failed to reverse Ukraine’s European choice, Putin escalated to direct military intervention with the seizure of Crimea. This set the stage for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine eight years later.

Voters in Moldova and Georgia are acutely aware of the Kremlin’s increasingly violent reaction to the potential loss of Ukraine, and are understandably eager to avoid suffering the same fate. At the same time, Moscow must contend with considerable public enthusiasm in both countries for European integration. While Moldova’s recent referendum on EU membership ended in a virtual tie, polls typically indicate majority backing for the European Union of sixty percent or higher. Pro-EU sentiment is thought to be even stronger in Georgia, with one recent poll finding seventy nine percent in favor of joining the EU.

Geopolitics is not the only topic shaping the current election cycles in Moldova and Georgia, of course. Domestic issues such as household budgets and the management of the economy will also be crucial in determining the outcome of the two votes. Nevertheless, the prominence of Russia in both election campaigns is a timely reminder that Moscow is in no mood to retreat and remains fully committed to retaining its regional influence.

Vladimir Putin chose to invade Ukraine because he became convinced that the country was slipping irreversibly away from Russia and could no longer be kept in place by non-military means. This chilling reality looms large over the Moldovan and Georgian electorates as they prepare to vote in elections that will potentially define their futures for decades to come.

In a soft power contest of ideas, there is little doubt that the West would prove far more appealing to Moldovan and Georgian voters than anything the Kremlin has to offer. However, in the more pragmatic and immediate realm of hard power, it is Russia that currently holds the clear advantage. Coupled with Moscow’s proven record of successful election influence operations, this means there is every chance that pro-Kremlin forces could strong-arm their way to ballot box success in both Moldova and Georgia.

Katherine Spencer is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Five questions (and expert answers) about Moldova’s elections

Atlantic Council experts — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 18:54:30 +0000

Under “assault,” they’re still standing. On Sunday, Moldovans narrowly voted to enshrine the goal of joining the European Union (EU) in the country’s constitution. Meanwhile, Moldova’s pro-Western president, Maia Sandu, did not clear 50 percent of the vote and thus will compete in a runoff election on November 3. The pivotal elections were hit by an extensive influence operation from Russia, which Sandu on Sunday called an “unprecedented assault” on Moldova’s democracy. Below, our experts address five burning questions about how to interpret the results and what comes next.

1. What is the significance of the referendum vote?

The Moldovan pro-EU referendum passed, amending the constitution and making EU accession a constitutional goal. However, it’s not an inspiring victory, as many wished.

The narrow result is significant, but it doesn’t necessarily signal a decline in support for European integration. For more than fifteen years, polls have consistently shown a strong majority of Moldovans favor EU membership, making this narrow outcome unexpected.

The result was shaped by several factors, including the pro-European government’s performance, intense disinformation campaigns, and strategic voter manipulation. Pro-Russian forces used tactics such as promoting a “no” vote, encouraging a boycott, and pushing the “not now” narrative to confuse and discourage moderate pro-EU voters. Therefore, the referendum result isn’t an accurate barometer of support for EU integration; it’s more a consequence of disinformation and targeted strategies that exploited existing societal fears.

The narrow referendum result, however, is a setback for Sandu’s supporters, potentially weakening her position. She could face a tough runoff against a united pro-Moscow opposition.

—Victoria Olari, research associate for Moldova with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab

2. Were Russia’s meddling efforts a success for Moscow?

Russia’s meddling efforts made a significant impact in the Moldovan election, but ultimately did not bring the Kremlin success. As Moldovans narrowly chose “yes” on the EU referendum, Russian leaders should be disappointed in their failed investment—they put millions of dollars into hybrid attacks on Moldova’s democracy and efforts to buy hundreds of thousands of votes against the referendum, but the referendum managed to pass.

It did so by an extremely narrow margin. The outcome came down to a difference of less than twelve thousand votes, so Russia may exploit this and the role the diaspora played in voting “yes” to challenge the results’ legitimacy. In fact, a Kremlin spokesman already hinted at this strategy on Monday. While Moscow was ultimately unsuccessful in swaying the vote against the referendum, the tight race for both the referendum and for Sandu heading into the runoff shows that the influence efforts likely did make an impact.

—Shelby Magid, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center

3. With Sandu heading to a runoff, what do we know about her opponent, Alexandr Stoianoglo?

Stoianoglo is a former prosecutor general of Moldova, now backed by the pro-Russian Party of Socialists (PSRM). Originally from the autonomous territory of Gagauzia, Stoianoglo has a background in law and politics, with roles in prosecution and as a member of parliament. His time as prosecutor general (2019-2021) was marked by controversy, notably the release of businessman Veaceslav Platon, accused of major banking fraud, which led to public backlash and his dismissal by Sandu.

Although he presents himself as pro-European, Stoianoglo offers a pro-Russian alternative, backed by the PSRM, and promotes a traditionalist agenda centered on protecting Moldova’s sovereignty from Western influences. His candidacy has been strategically supported by the US-sanctioned pro-Russian oligarch Ilan Shor’s electoral bloc, which played cat-and-mouse with the authorities, deploying so-called “satellite” candidates to create confusion regarding its real intentions. This approach, previously tested in local elections, helped boost Stoianoglo’s unexpected performance in the first round, in which he earned about 26 percent of the vote to Sandu’s 42 percent, making him a significant challenger to Sandu in the runoff.

—Victoria Olari

4. What can we expect from Russia in the coming weeks?

In this weekend’s vote, the main focus of Russian meddling was on the referendum. Going into the runoff race for the presidential election, we can expect Russian efforts to consolidate its influence and disinformation efforts against Sandu and to back Stoianoglo. Russian information operations have played on Moldovans’ fears of facing Russian attacks like that against Ukraine, so Moscow may push the narrative that Sandu is leading Moldova in a dangerous direction, whereas Stoianoglo wants to balance foreign relations in a safer way. In addition to pushing this narrative, Russia could go so far as to target some of its kinetic attacks against Ukraine near the Ukraine-Moldova border to further stoke Moldovan fears of a Russian threat. We can also expect Moscow to use the network it has built through vote-buying to rally against Sandu in the coming weeks.

Russian malign efforts will not stop after the presidential runoff. As Moldova faces parliamentary elections next year, further Russian hybrid attacks and attempts to destabilize the country should be expected. In a speech on Monday, Sandu pointed to this future threat, saying that the parliamentary elections would be “one last battle” to fight along the road to EU membership.

In addition to massive disinformation efforts, Russia has tested other hybrid tactics that Moldova needs to continue to watch for and strengthen itself against. These tactics include Russian sabotage efforts, as Moldovan police recently announced they found hundreds of people were trained in Russia and the Balkans to create mass disorder and stage riots in Moldova, including through tactics to provoke law enforcement. While the plot was foiled ahead of this election, these tactics could still be employed later.

—Shelby Magid

5. What can and should Washington do right now?

Washington has been very active, along with the EU, in supporting Moldova’s democratic resilience and institutions in the lead-up to this critical election. Washington has been careful with messaging in support of Moldova’s democracy and in condemning Russian meddling. While the United States should continue to state its support for Moldovan democracy and Euro-Atlantic aspirations, this messaging must be handled delicately to avoid appearing to throw support behind a specific candidate and tip the scales in the election.

Washington should stay aligned with the EU in messaging about the election and should put out a strong high-level statement about the significant level of Russian interference and hybrid attacks to raise further awareness of Moscow’s malign influence.

In response to Sunday’s vote, White House national security spokesman John Kirby stated: “The United States remains a proud partner of Moldova, and we will continue to stand with them as they endeavor to continue to support to protect their democracy, and quite frankly, to reach the aspirations of the Moldovan people.” This is the right sentiment and approach, and the support for strengthening Moldova’s institutions and democracy must continue through the next year ahead of the parliamentary elections, with the full expectation Russia will meddle again with many of the same tactics it tested out on this election.

—Shelby Magid

The post Five questions (and expert answers) about Moldova’s elections appeared first on Atlantic Council.

What to know about Russian malign influence in Moldova’s upcoming election

Victoria Olari — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 13:09:29 +0000

On October 20, Moldova faces a pivotal election that could reshape its future. A small republic in Eastern Europe, seemingly insignificant on the global scale, Moldova is engaged in an existential struggle for its democratic future—with Russia playing an open and unprecedented role in trying to sway the outcome.

Moldovans will vote on pro-Western President Maia Sandu’s bid for re-election alongside a referendum on whether to add the goal of European Union (EU) membership to the constitution. These elections are happening against the backdrop of Russia’s ongoing war in neighboring Ukraine, making the stakes particularly high. The outcome is being closely watched by international actors such as the EU and the United States, both of which have warned of Russian interference and hybrid threats aimed at destabilizing Moldova. As a country located at a strategic crossroads between the West and Russia’s self-styled sphere of influence, Moldova has been a key target for disinformation campaigns and other forms of foreign manipulation.

The results of this election will either bolster Moldova’s resilience against external pressures or leave it more vulnerable to foreign influence. Ultimately, the vote will play a decisive role in shaping Moldova’s political direction, security, and international alliances, with long-lasting implications for the country’s trajectory.

A victory for pro-Western forces would strengthen Moldova’s alignment with the West, while a win for pro-Russian factions could increase security risks by aligning Moldova more closely with Russia’s regional agenda.

Although Moldova is a young republic, it has earned recognition as a functioning electoral democracy, with all the elements that come with such a status. The country regularly holds elections and boasts a dynamic multi-party political system. Since the end of the Cold War, Moldova has shown its capacity for peaceful transitions of power between rival parties. Even during politically turbulent moments, like the 2009 “Twitter Revolution,” which shifted the leadership from a pro-Russian to a pro-European government, the democratic process remained orderly and intact.

For all the internal and external challenges Moldova has faced, it has managed to preserve the core principles of an electoral democracy. This time, however, it might be a different story.

Under the shadow of corruption and foreign interference

The October 20 elections are taking place in an environment clouded by what could be the largest case of electoral bribery in Moldova’s history. For months, Moscow has been actively involved in propping up certain factions within Moldova.

Millions of dollars in cash have reportedly been smuggled into the country by individuals connected to the fugitive, US-sanctioned oligarch Ilan Shor, circumventing law enforcement efforts to stop the illegal flow of funds. Authorities had organized searches at the airport to halt this parade of individuals traveling to Moscow to bring back clandestine cash. However, Russia has found other ways to channel funds into Moldova. Through the Russian MIR payment system, financial resources are reportedly now being funneled to Moldovan voters, especially through the financial networks in the Transnistria region—a breakaway territory that has long served as a base for Moscow’s influence operations.

Moldovan authorities have raised alarms about large-scale vote-buying, with the General Police Inspectorate documenting cases of bribery involving at least 130,000 citizens and more than fifteen million dollars in illicit transfers from Russia in September alone. In reality, the scale might be significantly bigger, with some officials estimating it at around $100 million for the entire campaign.

Funds are being funneled into schemes designed to establish a national vote-buying network, resembling financial pyramids with intricate layers of transactions aimed at evading scrutiny. These funds range from “social” allowances for Moldovan pensioners to salary “bonuses” for employees of local government structures in the autonomous territory of Gagauzia. The money is now also, according to police and independent reporting, finding its way into the hands of so-called local “coordinators” and “supporters” of the “Victory” electoral bloc, a political entity created in and reportedly controlled from Moscow.

But it’s not just money that’s flowing into Moldova; disinformation is also playing a pivotal role in this election. The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab is tracking the spread of fake letters purportedly from public institutions and the incitement of hate speech and media attacks. Using communication tools such as Telegram, Moscow’s operatives are apparently paying individuals to generate and distribute disinformation on a massive scale. For example, a chatbot called “STOP UE/СТОП ЕС” is designed to recruit individuals against the EU referendum. In exchange for completing simple tasks—such as posting on Facebook, recruiting others, and convincing voters to vote against EU integration—participants can earn up to $280, if the majority of people at their polling station vote against the EU referendum. Moldovan police revealed this month that payments for the anti-EU campaign, organized via Telegram, are illegally made through a sanctioned Russian bank, with funds from a Russian nongovernmental organization called “Evrazia” (Eurasia), ranging from fifty dollars per month for “supporters” to more than $2,500 for regional “leaders.” This method of recruiting and paying “ambassadors” has been used widely across Moldova, including in Gagauzia and Chișinău, with multiple similar chatbots reported.

The scale of disinformation being spread in the run-up to this election is unprecedented in Moldova. The Kremlin’s goal appears to be to overwhelm voters with so much misleading information that they are unable to discern truth from lies, and ultimately to erode confidence in Moldova’s democratic institutions.

Not-so-secret foreign meddling

What is particularly alarming is the direct involvement of the Russian Federation. Unlike previous elections in which Moscow’s influence was more subtle, this time, the Kremlin has made no effort to hide its role as the main financial backer of certain political campaigns. Russia’s overt involvement raises serious concerns about Moldova’s sovereignty and the fairness of its elections. The Kremlin is not just supporting pro-Russian factions; it is actively seeking to reshape Moldova’s political landscape to serve its own geopolitical interests.

The “Evrazia” nongovernmental organization, which is transparent about its role in channeling funds into Moldova, has direct ties to the Kremlin and is led by Alyona Arshinova, a legislator in the Russian Duma and vice president of the ruling United Russia party.

Moscow’s efforts to influence the presidential election and constitutional referendum are strategically aimed at delegitimizing this crucial democratic exercise and discrediting the very idea of European integration.

For years, Russia has viewed Moldova’s pivot to European integration as a threat to its regional influence. Now, it is pulling out all the stops to disrupt this process, using financial, political, and media tools to create divisions within Moldovan society. Russia’s goal is clear: to pull Moldova back into its sphere of influence by any means necessary.

Moldova’s democracy hangs in the balance. The integrity of its electoral system, its institutions’ sovereignty, and its citizens’ trust are all on the line.

Victoria Olari is a research associate for Moldova with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.

The post What to know about Russian malign influence in Moldova’s upcoming election appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Russia is indoctrinating schoolchildren throughout occupied Ukraine

Tetiana Kotelnykova — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 15:10:46 +0000

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for his role in the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. The ICC’s allegations made headlines around the world, helping to raise international awareness about the thousands of Ukrainian children who have been abducted by Russia and subjected to a program of indoctrination designed to rob them of their Ukrainian nationality.

In addition to these well-publicized abductions, Russia is also conducting a far larger indoctrination initiative that targets hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian schoolchildren throughout occupied Ukraine. In areas under Russian occupation, the Kremlin is imposing an openly imperialistic school curriculum that denies the legitimacy of Ukrainian statehood and underlines the Russian government’s commitment to erasing Ukrainian identity altogether.

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Ever since the onset of Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2014, Moscow’s ambitions have extended far beyond conventional territorial gains. Over the past decade, Ukrainian classrooms in regions under Kremlin control have become an important battleground, with Russia intent on reshaping not only international borders but also national identities.

Vladimir Putin recently highlighted the importance of Russia’s efforts to indoctrinate the current generation of Ukrainian schoolchildren. Speaking at an educational event in early October, he singled out teachers working in occupied Ukraine for special praise. “You are demonstrating exceptional commitment and true courage, ensuring children can continue their education under challenging conditions,” he commented.

Moscow’s strategy has involved importing Russian teachers to schools in occupied Ukraine, while also pressuring Ukrainian educators to accept the new Kremlin-friendly curriculum via a combination of bribes, threats, and violence. “Ukrainian teachers in Russian-occupied Ukraine are now faced with a stark choice: Leave everything behind and flee, or become part of a system that indoctrinates children to justify Russia’s war of aggression,” commented Amnesty International General Secretary Agnès Callamard in October 2024.

Human Rights Watch has documented cases of arbitrary detention, torture, and intimidation targeting Ukrainian teachers and school administrators who refuse to comply with the Russian occupation authorities. One school director from the Kherson region in southern Ukraine reported being detained for a total of forty days and beaten before eventually escaping to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

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How Russia’s winter warfare strategy targets Ukrainian civilians

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Wherever the Kremlin has established control in Ukraine, the Ukrainian education system has been systematically dismantled. Instead, children in Russian-occupied regions of the country are now being taught a curriculum that glorifies the actions of the Russian military in Ukraine and justifies the current invasion.

New Russian school textbooks produced since the start of the full-scale invasion reframe the war in heroic terms and present Russia’s attack on Ukraine as a liberation mission rather than an act of international aggression. Meanwhile, children are encouraged to dismiss the entire notion of Ukrainian nationality and embrace a Russian imperial identity.

The Kremlin’s indoctrination campaign against the next generation of young Ukrainians goes far beyond historical distortions. The Russian occupation authorities are actively militarizing Ukrainian schoolchildren and encouraging teenagers to join the Russian army. Ukrainian children are also forced to attend special propaganda classes that seek to instill loyalty to Russia along with hostility toward Ukraine.

Ukrainian parents are being targeted by the Kremlin to make sure they agree to subject their children to Russian indoctrination. In occupied regions of Ukraine, parents have been threatened with a range of severe consequences for non-compliance including fines, loss of custody, or imprisonment. Despite the risks involved, tens of thousands of Ukrainian children in occupied regions continue to study online with Ukrainian teachers.

While international attention remains firmly focused on the military dimension of the war in Ukraine, it is crucial to recognize that Russia’s invasion is not merely an attempt to acquire new territory or redraw the map of Europe by force. The Kremlin also clearly aims to extinguish Ukrainian national identity, and sees the transformation of young Ukrainians into loyal Russians as a key element of this criminal endeavor.

Tetiana Kotelnykova is a graduate student at Yale University specializing in European and Russian Studies, and a research assistant at the Wilson Center. She is the co-founder and executive director of Brave Generation, a New York-based nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting young Ukrainians affected by war and cultivating future Ukrainian leaders.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had initially hoped that by invading Russia, he could pressure Putin into transferring troops from Ukraine to the home front. So far, this has not happened. Instead, the Russian army has continued to advance steadily in eastern Ukraine and has captured a number of towns and villages since Ukraine’s cross-border incursion began. At the same time, the fact that Putin has had to choose between the invasion of Ukraine the defense of Russia is in itself telling.

Russia’s difficulties on the Kursk front are the latest indication that Moscow is experiencing mounting manpower issues. In recent months, the Russian military has reportedly been forced to dramatically increase the bounties on offer to new recruits. According to investigative Russian news outlet Vyorstka, those who do agree to sign up to fight in Ukraine are now often in very poor health, with the average age of volunteers rising from forty at the start of the invasion to around fifty.

Other signs that Putin is being forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel to replenish the depleted ranks of his army include recent reports that sailors from Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, have been withdrawn from naval service and deployed to Ukraine as infantry. Russia is also in the process of passing new legislation that will allow defendants to sign military contracts and avoid prosecution. Tens of thousands of Russian prisoners have already been released from jail to fight in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, as Ukrainian troops crossed the border into the Kursk region in early August, they found that most of the Russian defenses in the border zone were manned by young conscript troops who were soon surrendering in large numbers. This has allowed Ukraine to replenish its exchange fund and conduct a number of prisoner swaps, while also causing considerable disquiet within Russian society.

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Putin’s uncharacteristically restrained reaction to Ukraine’s Kursk incursion suggests that he is well aware of his army’s shortcomings. Far from threatening World War III or attempting to rally his country against the foreign invader, Putin has sought to downplay the entire invasion, and has had remarkably little to say about what is the first foreign occupation of Russian land since World War II.

This underwhelming response has been evident since the very first days of Ukraine’s offensive, which Putin initially dismissed as a mere “provocation.” The Russian media has reportedly been instructed by the Kremlin to minimize the significance of the Ukrainian invasion, and has been tasked with convincing domestic audiences that the presence of Ukrainian troops inside Russia is now the “new normal.”

This does not mean that the Russian military is on the brink of collapse, of course. On the contrary, Putin has recently unveiled ambitious plans to further expand the size of his army to one and a half million soldiers, a move that would make it the second largest in the world after China. He can also announce a further round of mobilization if necessary, but this could potentially fuel domestic unrest and convince thousands of young Russians to flee the country.

Putin will certainly need to find large numbers of additional troops as he looks to compensate for Russia’s staggering losses and achieve his objective of gradually bleeding Ukraine to death in a brutal war of attrition. According to US officials, September 2024 was the bloodiest month of the war for Russian troops in Ukraine, but it was also one of the most successful in terms of new territory seized. With Russia now comfortably outnumbering and outgunning Ukraine, Putin is clearly counting on his country’s far greater capacity to absorb battlefield casualties and keep fighting.

Ukraine’s leaders seem to understand this grim arithmetic perfectly well. Indeed, they appear to have taken the bold decision to invade Russia in large part because they recognized that remaining locked in a war of attrition with their much larger enemy would be an act of national suicide.

Not everyone is convinced by the arguments in favor of the Kursk operation, with some critics calling it a reckless gamble and a strategic blunder that has weakened Ukraine’s defenses at a critical moment. Nevertheless, there is no denying that the offensive has succeeded in challenging the previously prevailing narrative of inevitable Russian victory. Crucially, the Ukrainian invasion of Russia’s Kursk region has also demonstrated that Putin’s overextended army is far more vulnerable than the Kremlin would like us to believe.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

I. Russian information influence activities against nonproliferation

II. Recognizing Russian information influence activities

III. Responding to Russian information influence activities

IV. Reinforcing a community of practice

V. Considerations for implementation and the way ahead

Russian information influence activities against nonproliferation

Russia relies on a range of malign tactics to complement its conventional warfare capabilities, including information manipulation. Throughout Europe, Russia creates or amplifies false narratives that support the Kremlin’s ultimate geopolitical goals: undermining unity and security in Europe and abroad.¹ These narratives attempt to evoke emotional and psychological responses from the public with the broader aim of amplifying polarization, undermining democracy, and weakening support for international norms and institutions.

Russia’s information manipulation networks—which consist of official spokespeople, state-run media, proxy websites, social media, and other entities—aim to exploit fears and sensationalize threats through a range of information influence activities (IIA), a term we use to capture the multifaceted nature of information manipulation. IIA includes disinformation, misinformation, malinformation, and propaganda (see definitions in Table 1 and a full list of key terms in Appendix I).

Sources: Atlantic Council, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/issue/disinformation/; James Pammen, A Capability Definition and Assessment Framework for Countering Disinformation, Information Influence, and Foreign Interference, NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, November 2022; Dean Jackson, “Distinguishing Disinformation From Propaganda, Misinformation, and ‘Fake News,’” National Endowment for Democracy and International Forum for Democratic Studies, n.d.; “How to Identify Misinformation, Disinformation, and Malinformation,” Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, ITSAP.00.300, February 2022; and “Understanding Propaganda and Disinformation,” European Parliament, November 2015.

Russia has perfected its use of information influence activities to achieve its geopolitical goals. Through its information networks, Russia attempts to inject narratives favorable to the Kremlin.² Russia’s tactics include saturating the information space, continuously sharing false and misleading information, and amplifying preexisting narratives.³ These narratives try to damage the credibility of political institutions and instill feelings of distrust, confusion, and fear.⁴

Historically, Russia has targeted states around the world with information warfare. In Europe, topics such as inflation, migration, and energy shortages are regular targets of Russian disinformation.⁵ To amplify its IIA, Russia uses a broad network of fake pages, social media accounts, and private messaging groups. However, authentic accounts—including many within the countries that Russia is targeting—are often just as involved in these campaigns, whether they know it or not.⁶ Media outlets within targeted countries frequently pick up, repackage, and amplify Russian narratives, furthering the impact and resonance of the Kremlin’s influence.⁷

Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine in 2022 featured IIA as a prominent Kremlin tactic to augment Putin’s conventional war. Russia’s methods included frequent narratives designed to target nonproliferation norms and regimes, which continues a pattern the Soviets followed during the Cold War. These tactics mirror previous Soviet patterns of employing “active measures,” or covert propaganda and influence operations to project control surrounding CBRN weapons and erode trust in democratic institutions.⁸ As part of its active measures campaign, the Soviet Union made false allegations that the United States had developed and used biological weapons.⁹ After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia targeted the activities of the US Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program by alleging the US government employed the CTR program as a cover to develop CBRN weapons throughout Europe and Eurasia, even though the CTR program was developed to curb the possible spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) throughout the region after the Soviet Union’s collapse and included Russian participation until 2014.¹⁰

Russia continues to spread unfounded allegations that ongoing partnerships between the United States and other countries are fronts for biological weapons development programs.¹¹ Russia intensified its use of propaganda and false claims that argued Ukraine was engaged in developing biological weapons to be used against Russian civilians.¹² These efforts damage the credibility of the work conducted in legitimate research facilities, undermine public trust in these institutions, and potentially jeopardize the safety of laboratory staff.

After the re-invasion of Ukraine, Russia intensified its influence operations across Europe to sway public opinion in its favor. Many of Russia’s claims included that Moscow is seeking peace, Ukraine is inherently aggressive, the West instigated the war, and the European Union (EU) and NATO are to blame for increased tensions in the region.¹³ Russia complements its conventional war in Ukraine with information warfare to fracture Western support for Ukraine, and shore up global support from nonaligned countries within multilateral organizations.¹⁴

Russia published false claims of “dirty bombs” being built in Ukraine on state-run media. In reality, the photo evidence was taken from a Slovenian reactor. Image: Deutsche Welle/Agency for Radwaste Management of Slovenia

Impact of Russian information influence activities on nonproliferation norms

Russia’s manipulation of the information space to erode support for nonproliferation includes continued support for the Assad regime in Syria through disinformation and misinformation, despite Assad’s well-documented history of using chemical weapons against civilian populations in Syria’s civil war in the mid-2010s.¹⁵ Russia has also used the information domain to spread false and misleading information related to the Kremlin’s targeted assassination attempts with chemical weapons. This included Moscow’s attack on Russian dissidents in the United Kingdom (UK), against a former KGB agent and his daughter, as well as on its own territory against prominent dissident Alexei Navalny.¹⁶

Russia combines information influence activities with disruptive behavior in multilateral institutions, such as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to interrupt proceedings, derail procedures, and slow down investigations.¹⁷ Russian diplomats levy false accusations against nations Moscow deems hostile to stymie progress and undermine the authority of these organizations.¹⁸ These actions are not necessarily used to persuade others to accept Russia’s arguments, but instead to create doubt and confusion, undercut the unity and effectiveness of the organizations, and weaken protections of nonproliferation norms and regimes.¹⁹ Russia’s allegations include that Ukraine is concocting plans for a potential chemical attack (articulated at the OPCW in 2022),²⁰ preparing to deploy dirty bombs and nuclear weapons (UN, 2022),²¹ and using and developing biological weapons (BWC, 2022).²²

Russia’s false claims weaken accountability and verification measures established to monitor compliance with international treaties that ban CBRN weapons and regulate the legitimate use of technologies that have a dual-purpose capacity to create such weapons.²³ These claims also undermine efforts to strengthen and modernize nonproliferation norms and regimes, especially with respect to emerging technologies. Russia’s actions also distract from the Kremlin’s own harmful activities and noncompliance with nonproliferation obligations, especially Russia’s support for and use of chemical weapons, their sympathy for other regimes that have used CBRN weapons, and their escalatory rhetoric.

Figure 1: Russia published false claims of “dirty bombs” being built in Ukraine on state-run media. In reality, the photo evidence was taken from a Russian reactor. Image: Deutsche Welle, https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-russias-false-case-for-a-dirty-bomb-inukraine/a-63590306.

Figure 2: Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed the United States shipped chemicals to Ukraine to be used against Russian soldiers, while only providing a random assortment of graphics taken from other contexts as “evidence.” Image: Twitter/strana-rosatom.ru, http://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/1630683781215526912.

In several posts on state-run media and on social platforms, the Kremlin shared so-called evidence that Ukraine was developing a “dirty bomb,” an explosive device that contains radioactive material. However, the photo—depicted in Figure 1—was taken from other websites. In this instance, the photo provided as “evidence” was taken from the Russian stateowned nuclear energy company Rosatom. In Figure 2, Russia claimed the United States was providing toxic chemicals and other CBRN-related materiel to Ukraine, which indicated a “large scale provocation.” These kinds of narratives could serve as false flag scenarios for Russia’s own potential use of CBRN weapons, which would have severe consequences for nonproliferation norms in Ukraine and more broadly in Europe.

Overall, these tactics serve as tools in Russia’s toolbox to discredit and weaken the multilateral institutions and regimes that govern nonproliferation. Russia’s persistent IIA erode trust and credibility in nonproliferation, which safeguards the international community from the development and use of CBRN weapons. The effects of Russian IIA are widespread, as evidenced by the experience of three European countries: Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia. The following sections provide an overview of each country’s recent experience with Russia’s false claims associated with nonproliferation and CBRN weapons.

Slovenia

Slovenia has been an active target of Russian disinformation and information influence activities. In 2016, Russia claimed NATO would harbor a secret arsenal of nuclear weapons throughout Eastern Europe,²⁴ including in Slovenia. Russian state media organizations invested millions of dollars in Central and Eastern European countries, such as Slovenia, to influence domestic politics and exacerbate political polarization through state-run media channels, government proxies, and other systems. Many of Slovenia’s top proliferators of disinformation and other falsehoods have significant inroads and connections to Russian state-media organizations.²⁵

Several websites that maintain strong linkages to Russia and the Kremlin—including RBTH Daily, NewsFront, and Katehon—operate or are available in Slovenia and consistently post dangerous rhetoric on the EU, NATO, and the United States. Russia launched RBTH Daily, a mobile app version of its Russia Beyond service operated by the Russian state news agency that regularly publishes content in Slovenian.²⁶

Figure 3: The Slovenian government’s response to Russian disinformation about radioactive weapons being used in Ukraine. ARAO stands for Agency for Radwaste Management, which is responsible for managing all radioactive waste in Slovenia. Image: Twitter/govslovenia, https://twitter.com/govSlovenia/status/1584936237806206976.

In early 2023, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed on Twitter that Ukraine was secretly building a dirty bomb and included a series of photos as evidence.²⁷ One of the photos was taken directly from a 2010 public education campaign on the Slovenian Agency for Radioactive Waste’s website. In response, the Slovenian government quickly published a statement on its official website and on social media that denied Russia’s claims and stressed that nuclear waste was stored safely in the country (see Figure 3).²⁸ Slovenian government authorities responded to these Russian campaigns and attempts to undermine its credibility with facts, data, and truthful information.²⁹

Slovakia

Russia also has frequently targeted Slovakia with IIA. Within Slovakia, pro-Russia propagandists are actively working to discredit Slovakia’s allies,³⁰ including the United States, the EU, and other NATO allies to downplay Russian aggression in Ukraine, deflect blame from historical conflicts, and denigrate responses from across the Alliance. These campaigns also attempt to erode trust in and the credibility of nonproliferation norms and regimes.

A general view of the “Foreign Ministers of Partners at Risk of Russian Disinformation and Destabilization” session at the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Bucharest, Romania, November 2022. Source: Stoyan Nenov/REUTERS

For example, in May 2023, Russia spread disinformation in Slovakia regarding an alleged radiation leak as a result of an explosion of the ammunition warehouse in the Ukrainian city of Khmelnytskyi.³¹ Through its claims circulated on social media channels and with support from the Russian embassy in Slovakia, the Kremlin attempted to incite fear within targeted communities that there was a significant airborne risk of radiation spilling over into Slovakia from Ukraine.³²

In 2022, the Russian embassy in Bratislava issued several posts that claimed the United States and Ukraine were developing biological agents. The embassy—which was named by the International Republican Institute’s Beacon Project as the most virulent in circulating disinformation across Moscow’s network of diplomatic missions—alleged that the United States and Ukraine were developing biological weapons that could target specific ethnic groups, including Slavs.³³

Similar to Slovenia’s experience, the Kremlin injects pro-Russian messaging within Slovakia to amplify its geopolitical goals. One recurring target of Russian information manipulation is the bilateral defense cooperation agreement (DCA) that Slovakia signed with the United States in 2022.³⁴ After it was signed, Russian operatives began to inject falsified information that the DCA would include the deployment of nuclear weapons in Slovakia.³⁵

Slovakia’s elections in September 2023 were preceded by an influx of false and misleading messages, including those from Russia. The London-based nonprofit organization Reset recorded more than 365,000 election-related disinformation messages on Slovak social networks in the first two weeks of September, with estimates that the number would grow.³⁶

Their research found messages that violated social network terms of use and featured disinformation generated more than five times as much exposure as the average message. More than 15 percent of such content was posted by pro-Kremlin accounts.

Serbia

Serbia is one of Russia’s top targets in Eastern Europe for IIA. Serbia is deeply affected by Russian information operations that attempt to undermine perceptions of the EU, NATO, and other multilateral institutions in the region. With respect to CBRN weapons and nonproliferation, Russia has established a number of fake profiles, proxy pages, and state-run media (including Belgrade-based offices of Russia Today and Sputnik) in Serbia to share and amplify favorable stories on these issues.³⁷ Both Russia Today and Sputnik publish a constant flow of articles that relate to CBRN weapons and nonproliferation. Russia has invested resources and funds into ensuring that narratives gain a broader audience, especially in the Western Balkans, given Serbia’s relationship with Russia.³⁸ Several Russian state-sponsored or state-connected media organizations publish Serbian-language content in support of the Kremlin,³⁹ including News Front, SouthFront, Geopolitica.ru, and Katehon. For example, SouthFront has circulated several false claims, including that the OPCW neglected to share key details in their investigation on Syria’s chemical weapons program or that US accusations of Russia’s involvement in chemical attacks in Syria were an act of “whitewashing.”⁴⁰

Supporters of the opposition ‘Serbia Against Violence’ (SPN) coalition protest in front of the Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) building amid opposition claims of major election law violations in the Belgrade city and parliament races, which were the subject of frequent information influence campaigns, in Belgrade, Serbia. Source: REUTERS/Marko Djurica

However, even as Russian state-run media organizations maintain presences in Serbia, their most frequent tactic involves flooding the information space to see what resonates the most within local communities. Through these tactics, local media outlets in Serbia frequently repost and amplify Moscow’s claims laid out in state-run media, which has much more impact in reaching the public because many individuals in Serbia have greater trust in local media outlets. For example, on Serbian platforms, false claims include the story of the United States and Ukraine developing bats as biological weapons to attack Russians.⁴¹ These platforms include local media organizations, television broadcasters, radio stations, and others in Serbia that amplify, give credibility to, or create their own narratives that mirror the Kremlin’s priorities.

These narratives circulate beyond Serbia throughout the Western Balkans. Given the reach of Serbian media and historical connections with other nations in the region, many of the narratives related to CBRN weapons and nonproliferation that are shared in Serbia are picked up by other media organizations—including in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and North Macedonia—with great effect. Russia benefits significantly from destabilization in the Western Balkans, especially when Serbia and its neighbors do not condemn Russia’s actions within the international community. As part of its broader geopolitical strategy, Russia uses Serbian media organizations as proxies to create distrust in nonproliferation regimes while degrading broader support for global nonproliferation norms.⁴²

A strategic framework to counter Russian information influence activities

Given the scope and severity of Russian threats to nonproliferation norms in Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia, the project team developed a strategic framework for countering Russian IIA with the Department of State’s Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction. We convened private, small-group workshops with representatives from government, civil society, academia, media, think tanks, business groups, law enforcement, and other sectors in Ljubljana, Bratislava, and Belgrade in 2023.⁴³ The first series of workshops, conducted in all three cities, was designed to educate personnel who were familiar with the challenges of IIA but less knowledgeable about nonproliferation topics, especially as it relates to the risks IIA pose to the stability of nonproliferation norms and potential use of CBRN weapons. These workshops included a scenario-based exercise where attendees were asked to create a counter-messaging strategy to respond to a hypothetical disinformation campaign from an adversary that involved an anthrax leak at a secure government laboratory.⁴⁴

After these workshops were completed, the project team used the results of the discussions, our extensive research, and consultations with experts in the region to create a draft strategic framework for countering IIA. The framework is comprised of three critical elements, or pillars. As depicted in Figure 4, the three pillars are recognize, respond, and reinforce a community of practice. For the next series of workshops, the project team returned to Bratislava and Belgrade to present the draft strategic framework to similar groups of experts, both those who were present at the first workshops and new stakeholders. Participants shared their views related to the three pillars, as well as the threat of Russian IIA more generally in their countries. Their feedback was critical to finalize the strategic framework presented in this report.

Figure 4: The Atlantic Council’s strategic framework for countering Russian information influence activities.

These pillars reflect the central elements of establishing resilience against disinformation, misinformation, and other forms of IIA. As Figure 4 demonstrates, the pillars are mutually reinforcing. For example, members of a community of practice can help each other recognize possible Russian IIA and devise effective response strategies. Response options can be studied by the community of practice to understand strengths and identify areas for improvement. The next three chapters describe each pillar of the strategic framework in greater detail.

Recognizing information influence activities

Through its IIA, Russia attempts to distract from its own harmful actions and noncompliance with nonproliferation norms and regimes. These actions include Russia’s use of chemical agents as weapons, its support for other regimes who have deployed chemical weapons, and its threats of nuclear escalation in Ukraine. Russia’s long history of sowing doubt and confusion in public discourse by manipulating information goes beyond its borders. In Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia, Russia has perpetuated narratives designed to undermine nonproliferation norms, including those about the development and use of CBRN weapons. The first pillar in our strategic framework is recognize, which covers strategies, methods, and tools to identify IIA. This pillar is critical to promoting public awareness of—and resilience against—Russian influence.

Key principles of recognizing information influence activities

Effective tools and methods to recognize IIA are critical to fostering greater resilience and promoting critical thinking. Many governments and organizations have prepared guidelines for how to recognize disinformation, misinformation, and other types of IIA.⁴⁵ Several of these guidelines discuss the importance of verifying, authenticating, and scrutinizing information. Some tools are tailored for academic settings or for government and multilateral institution representatives.⁴⁶ However, the wider public can use many of the same tools. Common elements include the following principles:

Check the sources of the content and authenticate legitimacy

Understanding the source of a social media post or article is a critical first step in determining whether the information is reliable. Media consumers should assess whether a source is a reputable and well-established individual, organization, media outlet, or other legitimate entity. This is especially important when considering responses to nonproliferation-related information manipulation.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) produced a guide titled “Disinformation Stops with You,” which recommends several useful tactics to evaluate content, including investigating the issue with other reliable sources of information and thinking before sharing the content online.⁴⁷ CISA’s guide, built around the principles outlined in Figure 5, serves as an important tool for local communities to identify forms of foreign malign influence. Ensuring accuracy and conducting diligent fact-checking can help prevent the spread and impact of IIA.

Figure 5: CISA’s “Disinformation Stops With You” project, encouraging members of the community to recognize and combat disinformation and other forms of IIA. Image: CISA, https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/19_1115_cisa_nrmc-Disinformation-Stops-With-You_0.pdf.

Verify information within the article or publication

Cross-checking information through multiple reputable sources is instrumental in confirming the accuracy of content. Fact-checking websites and other digital literacy tools provide a methodical approach to validating the claims presented in an article. Fact-checking and verifying information also can serve as an important educational tool for individuals to learn how to critically assess information. Digital and media literacy exercises allow the public to make better-informed judgments on the credibility of content before sharing.

Apart from fact-checking websites, trusted networks can serve as another way to corroborate information before publishing or sharing content. During each workshop, participants frequently pointed to how often they rely on their own trusted relationships to screen information. Verifying content is an important step in mitigating the spread of falsehoods and minimizing the impact of Russian IIA.

Prior to circulating any media online, audiences should inspect and identify the publication date of an article or post. A frequent Russian tactic includes circulating outdated information with eye-catching headlines that mislead audiences. First Draft News published a guide to corroborating false information online that recommends examining a webpage’s metadata to verify the date of the publication matches supporting sourcing elsewhere online and in print media.⁴⁸ Checking the publication date before sharing information can be a critical step in mitigating the spread of outdated, irrelevant, and sensationalized content.

Authenticate the authorship of content

Audiences should confirm the authorship of publications, especially as IIA can involve the impersonation of credible individuals or organizations.⁴⁹ Given that authors tend to publish within their area of responsibility and substantive focus, it is important to consider how the publication fits within the author’s broader expertise. Establishing the author’s identity by verifying their credentials contributes to the overall trustworthiness of the content.⁵⁰ Validating author identities is a necessary component to combat disinformation, while building trust and support for legitimate reporting.

Inspect multimedia and other content included within the post

With the development of new and emerging technologies, fabricated and doctored multimedia content appear more frequently on various publications, including social media posts and fringe website pages.⁵¹ To ensure manipulated content is properly verified, audiences should corroborate images and video to prevent manipulation through deepfakes, AI-generated photos and videos, deceptive editing, and other forms of online personalization.

Deepfake images in particular can mislead audiences to believe falsified content is real. For example, two seemingly authentic screenshots of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaking at a press conference appear in Figure 6.

Figure 6: A side-by-side comparison of screenshots that claim to be Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The photo on the right is real; the image on the left is a deepfake. Image comparison: Snopes, https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/03/16/zelenskyy-deepfake-shared/.

Both images appear to be authentic, but upon closer examination, there are indications that the image on the right was doctored. In this instance, the image on the right is an authentic photograph, while the image on the left is an AI-generated deepfake. However, for a user who is scrolling quickly on Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter), the difference may not be easy to discern, creating an even more challenging information environment.

Similarly, IIA rely on visually compelling or sensational images and video to evoke extreme reactions from audiences. This holds especially true for CBRN-related disinformation, which can grab attention and spread rapidly online, in print and broadcast media, and through word of mouth.⁵² As new methods for misleading audiences are developed, it is imperative for the public to ensure content has not been altered, taken out of context, or misconstrued to serve ulterior interests.

Tools to detect information influence activities

In many cases, it can be difficult to detect and identify IIA as they arise, especially as Russia deploys several kinds of narratives. As local media outlets frequently parrot Russian IIA and communities battle the constant influx of propaganda, people can unintentionally share misinformation. Several tools and methods exist to help identify and verify the accuracy of information shared online.

Fact-checking and debunking websites

Fact-checking sites and debunking organizations play an important role in assessing the accuracy of information shared online. Fact-checkers often investigate and corroborate claims made in news articles, social media posts, and official government documents.

In Europe, EUvsDisinfo,⁵³ Snopes,⁵⁴ and PolitiFact are good examples of fact-checking and debunking websites.⁵⁵ In Slovenia, Oštro⁵⁶ and its fact-checking arm, Razkrinkavanje,⁵⁷ play an important role in vetting truthful information within the public domain. In Slovakia, fact-checking and debunking webpages—including Demagog.sk⁵⁸ and Infosecurity.sk⁵⁹—frequently fact-checked the statements of candidates during the September 2023 parliamentary elections. Similar organizations also exist in Serbia, including the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA),⁶⁰ FakeNews Tragač,⁶¹ and the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK).⁶² Finally, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty plays an important regional role throughout Central and Eastern Europe through its mission of sharing truthful information and independent analysis.⁶³

Reverse image search methods

Reverse image search tools are another important tactic in verifying online information. These platforms allow users to corroborate and verify the original uses and sources of images. Many reserve image search tools also provide tracing capabilities for audiences to track where the image has been circulated and whether the photos have previously been used in different contexts. In addition, reverse image search tools can determine whether questionable content has previously been used in other contexts. Similarly, in instances where images have been created and manipulated using deepfake technology, reverse image search tools are able to uncover the original sources of images and reveal inconsistencies, such as facial features, landscape backgrounds, and other details.

Figure 7: TinEye’s reverse image search platform can help users identify existing uses of images online. Image: https://tineye.com/.

Several platforms including Google Images,⁶⁴ TinEye,⁶⁵ and ImageRaider⁶⁶ are examples of systems that can help individuals confirm the authenticity of visual content online. TinEye, as displayed in Figure 7, uses a database of over sixty-four billion images for users to cross-reference when photos have been used in other contexts. Given how technical CBRN-related topics can be for audiences, these tools are important to support efforts in debunking and combating the spread of Russian IIA related to nonproliferation.

Web browser extensions

As search engines become more sophisticated, browser extensions can be useful tools to help identify false and misleading information, especially on webpages that tend to share disinformation. Many extensions can analyze links and sources in real time, which provides important details on the trustworthiness of information online.

One example of a browser extension is NewsGuard, which provides ratings and detailed information about the news sites that users visit as they read through various webpages.⁶⁷ SurfSafe is another example that can help identify disinformation and other forms of IIA through highlighting tools on content posts.⁶⁸ TinEye, the aforementioned reverse image search tool, also offers a browser extension for verifying visual content in real time when visiting webpages.

Digital forensics tools

Digital forensics tools are more specialized software that can investigate and analyze sophisticated IIA. Many of these tools can comb through the metadata of websites, which can reveal important details of webpages and their creation, modification, and origins, especially in tracing links to other pages. Other tools, such as social media forensics technologies, can assist investigators in tracking the spread of disinformation, identifying key actors within information influence networks, and analyzing the extent of Russian IIA’s reach and impact.

Figure 8: InVID is a useful digital forensics tool that can help analyze video footage that is spread online. Image: https://www.invid-project.eu/description/.

One sample tool is InVID, a browser extension that can verify the authenticity of videos and information shared on social media.⁶⁹ The tool, as seen in Figure 8, can be used in a variety of different formats, including a browser extension and mobile phone application. Forensically is another suite of digital tools for digital forensics, including image analysis and other forms of authenticating content.⁷⁰ Both forensics analysis systems are useful in identifying manipulated content and deepfake technology.

Augmenting methods to recognize information influence activities

Our discussions with representatives in Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia demonstrated that recognizing information influence activities is an important step to counter Russian influence efforts. However, these efforts need to be supported and complemented by effective responses to these campaigns. To counter Russian IIA, the recognize pillar of our strategic framework seeks to address some of the broader strategies that may be used in understanding the threat of disinformation and other forms of malign influence activity. In Chapter 3, we discuss our second pillar, responding to Russian information influence activities, which examines best practices and recent responses to Russian IIA.

Responding to information influence activities

Through our research, we identified several key principles to consider when crafting a response to Russian IIA. These principles are reinforced by examples from the United States, as well as the experiences of individuals in Slovenia, Slovakia, Serbia, and elsewhere. The second pillar in our strategic framework is respond, which covers strategies and narratives used to counter Russian IIA. Workshop participants demonstrated these principles when asked to create a response to the anthrax exposure posited in our hypothetical scenario-based exercise described in Appendix II. Several attendees also shared insights from their experiences creating responses to real-world Russian IIA, which we discuss in this chapter.

Key principles of responding to information influence activities

When crafting a response to Russian IIA, it is important to keep several key principles in mind: prioritize transparency and concise messaging, connect the ideas to the correct audience and platforms; and determine the best person to deliver the message.

Be transparent, clear, and concise

An effective response should be factual and clear, especially when addressing scientific and technical information that can be confusing to a non-specialist audience. By using clear and concise information, complex topics such as nonproliferation or chemical weapons can be distilled into digestible language that is easy to understand. Russia recognizes that CBRN-related issues and WMD threats are often not well understood among the general community, which makes them popular topics for false narratives.

Russia’s use of emotionally charged IIA has made the need for clear responses a priority. In Serbia, CRTA’s Istinomer project is at the forefront of debunking, fact-checking, and countering Russian IIA.⁷¹ Istinomer consistently monitors disinformation and misinformation on social media to determine which narratives are resonating the most within communities. Following their analysis, Istinomer staff publish short-form posts on their platform that debunk the various claims using facts. See Figure 9 for an example of how the Istinomer team debunked false and misleading claims that mischaracterized the work of US-supported research facilities in Ukraine. In each post, the Istinomer author refutes each false and misleading claim with citations, secondary sources, interviews, and further reading material, including US government reports.

Figure 9: Istinomer regularly fact-checks various forms of IIA on social media platforms using facts and transparency. Image: https://www.istinomer.rs/.

It is important for counter-messaging strategies to include these characteristics to resonate with audiences and ensure effectiveness, especially when it relates to nonproliferation-related information manipulation tactics.

Match the message to the audience and platforms

Different audiences might require tailored messaging strategies, including via different platforms. Younger audiences that receive much of their information from social media platforms may view TikTok before watching a local news broadcast. Those who spend more time driving might listen to radio news than those who commute via other means. Therefore, it is important to consider whether a counternarrative should include more visuals than text based on the intended audience and platform. Messages designed for television will require compelling audio and visual components, but messages designed for print media should focus on attention-grabbing graphics and text that clearly convey the main messages. However, all messages should include the same basic facts to promote consistency and accuracy.

Counter-messaging strategies must consider both the medium for sharing responses as well as the social media platforms themselves. For example, TikTok prioritizes short-form videos, while Instagram focuses more on photographs and other forms of visually appealing content. The combination of message and medium is especially important when considering which kinds of counter-messaging campaigns will resonate with different audiences. Two organizations in Slovenia—Danes je nov dan (Today is a new day) and Pod črto (The Bottom Line)—developed innovative methods of using storytelling to debunk false information in Slovenia using trusted voices and captivating forms of visual media. These efforts deepen the impact and reach of their organizations.⁷² One initiative, which Danes je nov dan termed Mislimetar (Figure 10), serves as an educational and entertainment mobile application that promotes media literacy and critical thinking in younger audiences.

Figure 10: A screenshot of the Danes je nov dan mobile application, Mislimetar, which serves as an important media literacy tool in Slovenia. Image: https://danesjenovdan.si/en/campaigns.

Regional differences also are important to consider. For example, in Slovakia, workshop participants said that Facebook and Telegram are more popular than Instagram or TikTok.⁷³ In Serbia, Telegram is the most frequently used social media platform, while Facebook remains a popular platform in Slovenia. Regardless of platform, it is essential to make sure credible information is available in regional dialects in addition to the main language spoken in a country to reach the broadest possible audience.

Consider who is best to deliver the message

The best person, organization, or outlet to deliver a counternarrative will depend on the country, city, or local area that the message is intended to reach as well as the specific target audience. When asked who the trusted messengers are within their communities, workshop participants in our three countries had varying answers. In Slovakia, the police and armed forces were cited as effective messengers, whereas in Slovenia, participants said a response led by the armed forces would not be well received.

The Slovak Police Force led a popular community-centered Facebook campaign titled “Hoaxy a Podvody” (“Hoaxes and Frauds”), which began in 2018. Through its platform, the Police Force led public engagement to debunk false narratives circulating online and develop an informed and resilient citizenry.⁷⁴ In 2023, the Police Force, part of the Department of Interior, kicked off a campaign called “Hoaxy Sa Na Mňa Nelepia” (“Hoaxes Don’t Stick to Me”). To move the campaign beyond the digital world, members of the community displayed buttons and stickers in public spaces in support of counter-disinformation efforts, as seen in Figure 11. The project’s community-centric focus could be a potential model to replicate in the future.⁷⁵

Figure 11: A photo from the Slovak Police Force Facebook page, which describes the “Hoaxes Don’t Stick to Me” campaign. Image: Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/hoaxPZ/.

Beyond responding: Proactive measures to prevent Russian information influence activities

Our discussions with representatives in all three countries demonstrated that responding alone is not enough to stop Russian IIA. Countries need to get ahead of possible Russian IIA campaigns, an observation shared by US government officials. For example, the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) established a dedicated information resilience office in 2022 to better understand the scope of information manipulation against its worldwide countering-WMD presence.⁷⁶ This includes prebunking,⁷⁷ a term that encompasses efforts to anticipate or identify IIA early and encourage resilience among citizens to inoculate them from IIA.⁷⁸ Additionally, the Department of State’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) has issued numerous reports about Russia’s attempts to spread disinformation about US and Ukrainian biosafety and biosecurity initiatives.⁷⁹ The GEC was established in 2017, but has more recently begun to explore whether sharing limited details about sensitive missions in advance can limit the effect of Russian attempts to twist facts after a mission has occurred.⁸⁰

To effectively counter Russian IIA, the respond pillar of our strategic framework takes a broad approach that incorporates elements of prebunking and early identification to promote a holistic view of response. In this way, response can be proactive or reactive, which is essential to limiting the effects of false narratives Russia spreads worldwide. In the next chapter, we describe our third pillar, reinforcing a community of practice, which encapsulates elements of the first two pillars to augment their importance to a broader audience.

Reinforcing a community of practice

A community of practice committed to identifying and countering Russian IIA is a critical component to limiting the effectiveness of Russia’s efforts to spread false messages in Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia. For our project, this community is defined broadly to ensure that all stakeholders are represented. Members of the public and private sectors, including government, military, law enforcement, academia, think tanks, nongovernmental organizations, and the media all have a role to play in recognizing and responding to Russian IIA. This third pillar in our strategic framework is reinforcing a community of practice, which covers opportunities to expand the multistakeholder community dedicated to responding to Russian IIA. In this chapter, we describe the general roles that a community of practice should serve in addition to country-specific considerations discussed throughout our workshops.

Community of practice roles

Members of the community play an important role in promoting resilience among the populations most frequently targeted by Russia’s false messages. These roles include reinforcing consistent communication, expanding social resilience, prioritizing multistakeholder engagement, and identifying methods to expand the overall community dedicated to countering Russian information influence activities.

Resource and reinforce

A vital role for the community of practice is to ensure that efforts to counter Russian IIA reach the broadest possible audience, both within a country and among its regional neighbors, when appropriate. Community members from academia and think tanks can amplify messages from government and law enforcement sources to add legitimacy to their campaigns. This cooperation requires consistent communication among the community to understand Russia’s IIA, how it affects the broader public, and what stakeholders can do to counter false narratives.

In March 2022, the Russian Defense Ministry circulated claims about US-backed Ukrainian bioweapons production efforts to justify Russia’s then-recent invasion of Ukraine.⁸¹ Officials from the People’s Republic of China and incendiary US media figures amplified these claims on a popular social media platform, Weibo.⁸² In response, prominent US officials testified before Congress about the legitimacy of US-backed research facilities in Ukraine—including those established with CTR resources—and organizations like DTRA and the GEC issued fact sheets and statements that bolstered the legitimacy of CTR’s work. Former US officials and private-sector experts wrote editorials, social media posts, and made media appearances decrying Russia’s claims, providing important alternative perspectives that bolstered official government messages. The reinforcement of the key message that the United States and Ukraine were not producing biological weapons was critical to reaching as broad an audience as possible.

Reinforcing capacity-building efforts focused on countering Russian influence efforts is a priority among stakeholders in Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia. However, interest in these issues must be matched by resources to maintain and create new counternarratives. Many of the workshop participants shoulder numerous work responsibilities in addition to tracking Russian IIA. One benefit of an engaged community of practice is the ability to cooperate on messaging strategies and share the resource burden, including the time it takes to craft engaging, informative narratives and discern the best platform(s) on which to disseminate these narratives. When new approaches are needed to respond to new or evolving Russian falsehoods, an active community can also ensure that key messages from past campaigns are carried over to promote consistency. Furthermore, a coordinated approach among stakeholders to amplify key messages and reduce duplication in messaging is important to reduce confusion and promote clarity.

The community of practice should also focus on enhancing social resilience through public messaging and public education campaigns. While it is more difficult to reach people who espouse aggressively favorable views of false claims, evidence-based messages can influence those who are more open-minded.⁸³ Though it might not be possible to stop Russia’s IIA, a resilient public might be less susceptible to believing or spreading false claims.

Enhancing social resilience emphasizes whole of society responses to counter Russian malign influence activities. This is a deliberately broad goal, but given the complexity of the media landscape, it is difficult to achieve.⁸⁴ A good starting point is by working through trusted messengers to understand whether false narratives have achieved support in specific parts of the community, and why those narratives were persuasive. Local journalists are especially critical because they are in closer contact with parts of the community that national outlets might not understand as well. In this way, local journalists can both contribute to an understanding of the pervasiveness of false messages and what could be effective in changing minds.

Media literacy is another critical component of enhancing resilience. Critical thinking skills that teach students to question everything they read can promote longer-term outcomes than identifying correct and incorrect statements.⁸⁵ Furthermore, engaging the public early and often can promote trust in the output of government data.⁸⁶ Such an approach has demonstrated benefits in countering public health-related disinformation and misinformation, and also applies to Russian IIA about biological and radiological weapons that prey on the health effects of exposure to toxic substances.

Employ multisectoral and multidisciplinary approaches

An important role of the community of practice is to promote effective methods to combat IIA through multisectoral and multidisciplinary approaches. For a complicated and technical subject such as biological weapons—a frequent target of Russia’s IIA efforts—it is critical to include scientists, public health experts, academics, and other experts in the development of responses. Communications experts should seek to translate scientific and technical information into digestible information suitable for a general audience. The Bioweapons Disinformation Monitor, a partnership between King’s College London and the Canadian government, publishes videos, fact sheets, and short reports that concisely explain false Russian narratives about biological weapons and the reasons why these claims are untrue.⁸⁷ In addition to producing concise, factual counternarratives, the website also promotes articles from other sources, such as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and foreign news sites to amplify the work of like-minded organizations in multiple sectors.⁸⁸

Identify opportunities for expansion

When considering other elements of society to incorporate into a community of practice, it is important to cast a wide net. In international relations theory, the concept of latent power refers to the broad range of resources available to a state that could contribute to greater military power.⁸⁹ Russia calls this the correlation of forces and means, which explains how Russia views its military expansion potential, but also incorporates elements of alliance relations, social cohesion, and economic stability that involve broader parts of society.⁹⁰ Although these theories have primarily military implications, the principle that all elements of a society can bolster one critical function applies directly to the fight against Russian IIA.

For example, Estonia has used a multisectoral approach to countering disinformation and misinformation since 2007, when it was subject to destructive cyberattacks that continue to present day.⁹¹ Media literacy is a core component of the curriculum in Estonian schools, and leaders from across Europe visit Estonia to learn more about their broad approach to establishing resilience to IIA.⁹² The need to go beyond traditional organizations tasked with identifying and stopping IIA also is understood in Slovakia. Participants at our second workshop in Bratislava suggested that engaging religious leaders and local labor officials to amplify counternarratives against false Russian claims could be effective because these leaders maintain the trust of their members.

Expansion also applies to promoting resilience across countries, not just in large population centers. In Slovakia and Serbia, political polarization and distrust of institutions hamper counter-messaging strategies and keep people with disparate views siloed from one another. Geographic differences exacerbate these silos. Participants in both countries noted that going beyond the capital allows one to reach disadvantaged communities that might be more affected by Russian information warfare preying on their existing views that the state does not look after their interests.

As the third pillar of our strategic framework, the community of practice plays an important role in reinforcing the efforts of the first two pillars to recognize and respond to Russian IIA. The linkages between the three pillars are important to ensure thoughtful, effective responses to false narratives that damage government credibility and trust in institutions. In the next chapter, we discuss considerations for implementing the strategic framework, as well as areas for investment to continue the fight against Russian IIA that target nonproliferation.

Considerations for implementation and the way ahead

Our research and discussions with stakeholders in Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia illuminated several important considerations for implementing initiatives to counter Russian IIA as they relate to nonproliferation. In this chapter, we describe these considerations and include recommendations for investment, while discussing the way ahead for this project.

Implementation considerations

There are many opportunities for stakeholders within the region to design successful responses to Russian IIA. These include opportunities to strengthen transparency and access to information, expand cooperation within multistakeholder groups, and broaden existing networks to include international partners.

Maximize transparency and safeguard access to information

To improve trust in public institutions and political processes, government entities should strive to be as transparent as possible with information related to false Russian claims about CBRN weapons. Providing truthful and accurate information with proper citations and evidence can play an important role in prebunking Russian narratives. Maximizing transparency on social media platforms with respect to the activity of Russian information networks also can play an important role, especially as civil society and other organizations prioritize how to respond to Russian IIA.

Enhance cooperation with a multistakeholder community

Involving the private sector in government-led responses to Russian IIA can strengthen relationships and improve information sharing with partners outside of government. Members of the private sector can support a healthy information environment, including through their support for independent investigative journalism and objective reporting.

Another opportunity to strengthen responses to combat Russian IIA includes connecting civil society organizations and government entities with their counterparts in scientific and academic communities. Research-oriented professionals bring a wealth of expertise on technical topics, such as CBRN weapons and nonproliferation, which can augment countermessaging strategies with data-driven information.

Similarly, youth organizations can play an important role in mitigating disinformation. Dedicated engagement and educational initiatives with younger audiences can build broader resilience against Russian IIA. Youth organizations serve as an opportunity to reach unengaged youth who are not necessarily involved in countering Russian IIA more broadly. Increasing investment within younger generations also helps mitigate the brain drain phenomenon of young, highly educated people leaving Central and Eastern Europe.⁹³ This phenomenon leaves fewer in the next generation that are able to study disinformation and nonproliferation, resulting in a significant gap in substantive expertise on these issues. It will be critical to reinvest in the next generation of experts, which will allow for greater potential for locally driven development of policy solutions, especially around nonproliferation and information warfare.

Expand the community of practice to include international partners

Members of the community of practices within Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia should enforce stronger multistakeholder engagement with international partners, including neighboring countries, international organizations, and the United States. Maintaining consistent close cooperation with international partners provides opportunities to learn about other countries that might experience similar challenges with respect to Russian IIA and discuss best practices for response. These opportunities to learn from a broader range of stakeholders can build stronger alliances to coordinate responses against threats of information warfare on a larger scale.

Areas for investment

To expand societal resilience to counter Russian IIA, key stakeholders and organizations need to prioritize investing in programs to confront information manipulation in Europe. Several opportunities play an important role in building resilience and effectiveness in the long term, including: augmenting proactive measures, strengthening media literacy efforts and fact-checking programs, supporting independent media and community journalism, and prioritizing capacity building efforts.

Augment proactive measures

Attempts to more proactively counter malign influence campaigns are an important area for additional resourcing so counter-messaging strategies are not primarily reactive. The United States and NATO are exploring ways to be more proactive in sharing research and information, including exploration of prebunking initiatives, but continued cooperation will benefit NATO allies such as Slovenia and Slovakia.⁹⁴ For Serbia, cooperation with the EU, regional partners, or nongovernmental organizations could provide insights on how to incorporate proactive measures into their counter-messaging strategies.

Strengthen media literacy efforts and fact-checking programs

Greater cooperation between journalists and government representatives can improve public awareness about the threats of Russian IIA and enhance resilience. Instituting media literacy curriculum in education systems is also important to improve resilience among younger citizens, especially those who are more active on social media and exposed to a wider variety of messaging. Additionally, fact-checking programs to promote critical engagement with information from news, television broadcasts, and social media platforms can be expanded beyond education systems to workplaces, government offices, and other environments that would benefit from increased awareness.

Support independent media and community journalism initiatives

Independent media and community journalism can play important roles in combating IIA, especially through the prioritization of localized reporting, transparency, and accountability. Through strong connections to the communities around them, media and community journalism initiatives’ active engagement and collaboration with local organizations and trusted officials enhances the overall credibility of responses to Russian IIA. These organizations can highlight local solutions and positive stories that can play a role in bolstering broader support for institutions, minimizing polarization, and blunting the negative effects of disinformation.

Consider ways to measure success

Across the three countries considered for this project and in the United States, members of the communities of practice struggle with how to measure the success of responses to Russian IIA. It is impossible to isolate the effects of one message or campaign within the entire media landscape, given how much content is produced and how quickly it is distributed. It also is difficult to predict what could influence Russia to change its tactics. However, there are resources available to guide the development of attention-grabbing, impactful messages that can garner support, such as EUvsDisinfo and the Bioweapons Disinformation Monitor. Additionally, greater engagement with academia and journalism professionals can assist in developing messages backed by industry best practices and standards.

Review adequacy of cybersecurity infrastructure

In addition to concerns over false Russian narratives, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia should consider whether existing cybersecurity measures are adequate to prevent cyberattacks. In the event prevention measures fail, each country should also review whether current defenses are up to date. For Slovenia and Slovakia, NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence could be a good resource to support or inform these reviews.⁹⁵

Focus on capacity building efforts to increase effectiveness and viability across sectors

Leveraging programs to build capacity within organizations can sustain efforts, increase effectiveness, and build long-term resilience. For civil society organizations, think tanks, media entities, and others that are involved in countering Russian IIA, it is important to prioritize efforts that strengthen their overall ability to achieve success. To counter Russian IIA, educational programs—both within and outside of formal educational institutions—allow stakeholders to obtain important skills in digital literacy, cybersecurity, and critical thinking abilities. Professional development opportunities for analysts and journalists alike can strengthen the ability to use technologies and other tools to combat Russian IIA. For public diplomacy officials, training sessions that focus on strategic communications and crisis management provide important opportunities to implement standard operating procedures within their organizations. These kinds of programs play an important role in developing the necessary skills and experience to counter Russian IIA on nonproliferation.

Additionally, community engagement programs serve an important role in capacity building within the public. Organized workshops, outreach programs, and structured dialogues contribute to a broader sense of involvement among the community, which can increase buy-in and participation when combating Russian IIA. Community engagement programs can also empower local leaders and educators to play a role in disseminating truthful information and countering Russian IIA within the public.

Project next steps

For the next iteration of this project, the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative and the Department of State’s Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction will continue to examine the threat of Russian malign influence efforts that target nonproliferation norms in Eastern Europe and the responses to these threats. The Atlantic Council will monitor developments in Russia’s IIA for topics related to nonproliferation and CBRN weapons that might emerge in our focus countries to tailor the content of our private workshops accordingly. In addition, we will also support the organizations, experts, and entities on the frontlines of Russia’s information warfare to enable implementation and sustainment of the project’s overall goals.

In the next phase of our project, the Atlantic Council will continue to refine the three pillars of our strategic framework to ensure they capture the current challenges to recognizing and responding to IIA within Central and Eastern Europe, as well as any challenges to reinforcing a healthy community of practice committed to countering IIA in the region.

Finally, we will work closely with our partners at the Department of State to identify new countries that would benefit from engagement with our strategic framework.

The research team thanks the US Department of State Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation’s Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction for their strategic guidance and overall support throughout the project. Special thanks go to the wide range of stakeholders in Slovakia, Slovenia, and Serbia who contributed their invaluable insights to our workshops and participated in other contexts to enrich the analysis.

We would also like to acknowledge Sarah Jacobs Gamberini and Amanda Moodie of the National Defense University’s Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction for their critical contributions to our workshops in Slovakia and Serbia. Sarah Jacobs Gamberini and the Atlantic Council’s Eto Buziashvili from the Digital Forensic Research Laboratory also provided valuable peer reviews that improved our strategic framework. Within the Atlantic Council, we recognize the critical contributions of Leah Scheunemann, Zelma Sergejeva, and Kristen Taylor for their project management, research, and analytical support; Dr. Matthew Kroenig and Christopher Skaluba for their oversight of the project; and Gretchen Ehle, Nicholas O’Connell, Caroline Simpson, and Ursula Murdoch for their operational guidance and assistance.

This report is intended to live up to General Brent Scowcroft’s standard for rigorous, relevant, and nonpartisan analysis on national security issues. The Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to continue his nonpartisan commitment to the cause of security, support for US leadership in cooperation with allies and partners, and dedication to the mentorship of the next generation of leaders.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Atlantic Council, the Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction, the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, the US Department of State, or the US government.

About the authors

Fellow

Natasha Lander Finch

Senior Fellow

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

Arms Control Europe & Eurasia

Fellow

Ryan Arick

Nonresident Fellow

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

NATO Security & Defense

Natasha Lander Finch is a senior fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She previously worked as a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, where she led and conducted research on a range of issues, including chemical, biological, and nuclear policy; counterterrorism; European security; and military and civilian workforce policy. She also held positions as an adviser within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and as the principal adviser for NATO’s Committee on Proliferation in the Defense Format.

Ryan Arick is an associate director with the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. In this capacity, he supports TSI’s work to strengthen the transatlantic alliance against emerging security threats from around the world. His research interests include NATO defense policy and transatlantic security; arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation; democratic resilience from foreign malign influence; and state fragility and conflict prevention.

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Irdi quoted by Financial Times on Russia’s information influence operations

Beniamino Irdi — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 20:22:58 +0000

Original Source

On September 30, Transatlantic Security Initiative nonresident senior fellow Beniamino Irdi was quoted by Financial Times on Russia’s information activity in Italy and Europe more broadly.

Fellow

Beniamino Irdi

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

Disinformation English

The Transatlantic Security Initiative, in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, shapes and influences the debate on the greatest security challenges facing the North Atlantic Alliance and its key partners.

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The post Irdi quoted by Financial Times on Russia’s information influence operations appeared first on Atlantic Council.

History is a key battleground in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Benton Coblentz — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 18:29:32 +0000

History is at the very heart of Russia’s war on Ukraine, with Russian President Vladimir Putin frequently using historical narratives to justify the invasion. Western academia can help combat the Kremlin’s weaponization of the past by paying significantly more attention to the field of Ukrainian history.

Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began ten years ago with the seizure of Crimea, history has been a key battleground. Putin set the tone himself by framing the spring 2014 occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula as an act of historical justice. He then famously published a lengthy essay in the run-up to the full-scale invasion using his version of history to argue against Ukrainian statehood. When the Kremlin dictator sat down with American journalist Tucker Carlson in early 2024 for his most high-profile international interview of the entire war, it came as no surprise that he chose to begin by launching into a rambling half-hour history lecture.

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It should now be clear that the Kremlin’s attempts to distort history represent a serious threat to international security. Academia can help global audiences become less vulnerable to Russian disinformation by improving awareness of Ukraine’s national story and decoupling the country from the imperial narratives that form the basis of Putin’s claims. A recent conference at Princeton University brought together a distinguished panel of Ukrainian history experts to address the current state of Ukrainian historical studies and look ahead.

As Princeton professor and conference co-organizer Iryna Vushko noted, victims have not traditionally been viewed as particularly interesting in academic studies of history. In order overcome the obstacles inherent in histories written by the victors, it is important for academics to ensure that narratives around contemporary events make more effort to center the targets of international aggression.

During the conference, Harvard University professor of Ukrainian history Serhii Plokhy acknowledged that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is “wrapped in bad historical mythology.” According to Plokhy, Putin is clearly motivated by his personal vision of Russian history as he seeks to reassert Russian dominance over Ukraine. The Harvard historian and prominent author observed that Putin’s attempts to root his invasion firmly in the past have had the unintended consequence of generating significant interest in Ukrainian history.

Despite this unprecedented attention, Russia’s invasion has in many ways highlighted how much work must still be done. Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies director Natalia Khanenko-Friesen noted that there is a need to “move forward on the decolonization of our field.” She pointed to projects such as the recently launched doctorate fellowship in indigenous Crimean Tatar studies at the University of Alberta as important contributions toward this goal.

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Decolonization will only be possible when Ukraine’s history is viewed beyond the context of established imperial narratives and on its own terms, of course. Yale University professor Marci Shore, whose work has focused on the intellectual history of Eastern Europe, reflected on how she feels the study of Ukraine should need no explanation. “This is a place I came to of my own free will because it was inherently fascinating,” she commented.

Shore noted that Ukraine has been at the forefront of key European intellectual and political developments for centuries. As they confront the current Russian invasion, Ukrainians are being forced to address some of the central questions of our time, including the meaning of national identity in twenty first century Europe and the balance between democratic values and national survival in a country waging an existential war.

There was broad agreement among conference panelists that the full-scale Russian invasion had thrust Ukraine into the international limelight. Martin Schulze Wessel of Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University said Ukraine was “no longer the periphery” and had instead moved to the center of European events. He argued that Ukraine’s extensive historical experience of Russian imperialism can offer important lessons for today’s policymakers. According to Schulze Wessel, this could help demonstrate the “illusion” of believing a sustainable peace can be achieved without strengthening Ukraine to resist further Russian aggression.

Significant challenges remain. Plokhy noted that while numerous Western universities have begun creating new positions in fields such as Ukrainian language and literature, Ukrainian history studies has not yet witnessed the same kind of growth. He called for more investment in the emerging generation of young scholars and greater support for Ukrainian institutes that will be capable of continuing their important work even if public interest in the region wanes.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed serious shortcomings in the international community’s awareness of the region. Putin and other Russian officials have exploited this lack of knowledge to push an unashamedly imperialistic interpretation of Ukrainian history. They have used this weaponized historical narrative to justify the largest European invasion since World War II. This underlines the need for universities to prioritize the study of Ukrainian history and center Ukrainian perspectives in conversations about the country.

Benton Coblentz is an MPA candidate at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

This uncompromising push for Ukraine’s capitulation reflects Putin’s well-documented obsession with the country. For many years prior to the current full-scale invasion, Putin regularly demonstrated his contempt for Ukrainian independence while insisting Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”). Since 2022, he has openly compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great, and has argued that far from seizing Ukrainian territory, he is actually reclaiming “historically Russian lands.” If he is allowed to succeed in Ukraine, it is naive to imagine Putin will not target the many other countries in the neighborhood that also meet his definition of “historically Russian” due to their former status within the Russian Empire.

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The kind of land-for-peace deals favored by some Western politicians and pundits are equally unlikely to bring about a sustainable peace. Any attempt to freeze the conflict along the current front lines would reward Putin for his decision to launch the biggest European invasion since World War II, while also legitimizing the Russian occupation of almost one-fifth of Ukraine. Emboldened by this success, Moscow would use any ceasefire to rearm. The Kremlin would also work to destabilize the remainder of the Ukrainian state in preparation for the next stage of the invasion.

The first step toward any realistic settlement is convincing Russia that it cannot hope to prevail on the Ukrainian battlefield. At present, Russia is proceeding from the assumption that it will be able to continue establishing facts on the ground via overwhelming military force. Despite sustaining extremely heavy losses, the Russian army is currently advancing slowly but surely in eastern Ukraine. These gains allow Moscow to undermine morale in Ukraine itself and among the country’s partners, creating the conditions for ultimate political success. In order to stop Putin’s war machine, the West must dramatically increase military aid to Kyiv and lift restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to strike back inside Russia.

Unless this happens, Putin will have very little reason to consider ending his invasion. Russian military recruitment levels are currently sufficient to make up for the high casualty rates in Ukraine, with vast sums of money being offered to attract new volunteers. Despite unprecedented sanctions, the Russian economy shows no signs of collapse and has instead transitioned successfully to a wartime footing. With no serious anti-war movement in Russia, Putin is unlikely to face any domestic challenges. Moscow can also rely upon mounting weapons deliveries from its North Korean and Iranian allies. In such circumstances, why would Putin agree to peace on anything other than his own terms?

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Defeating Russia on the battlefield is only the first part of the challenge, of course. A durable peace will only be possible once Ukraine is no longer stranded in geopolitical no man’s land and becomes fully embedded into the security framework of the Western world. This means NATO membership, or the equivalent level of security commitment via binding bilateral agreements. Understandably, there is zero appetite in Ukraine for a repeat of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and its disastrous “security assurances.” Recent security pacts signed by Kyiv and dozens of partner countries are a welcome step, but fall far short of the commitment levels necessary to deter Moscow.

At present, Putin remains confident that he can achieve his goals in Ukraine by outlasting the West. In order to create the conditions for a sustainable peace, the Russian dictator must therefore be persuaded that the democratic world is committed to Ukraine for the long-term, and convinced that any future aggression would involve unacceptable costs for the Kremlin.

Western leaders can send an unambiguous message to Moscow without breaking the bank. Indeed, there is a strong economic argument for doing so, as supporting Ukraine today is far cheaper than the potential cost of rearming to face a victorious Russia tomorrow. Recent calculations suggest that a commitment of just 0.25 percent of GDP from each of Ukraine’s partners would make a major difference.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is now entering a critical stage. Decisions taken in Western capitals in the coming weeks will likely have a major impact on the future course of the war and the shape of any eventual peace agreement. At present, Ukrainians have little to gain from a ceasefire that would strengthen Russia and leave their own country more vulnerable than ever. Instead, they are looking to secure the kind of military aid and security commitments that can allow Ukraine to regain the upper hand on the battlefield and set the stage for a sustainable peace.

If Ukraine’s vision for victory receives sufficient support, there is still a good chance that a lasting peace in Europe can be achieved. However, if Western countries seek to appease Russia in order to achieve a temporary pause in hostilities, they will be condemning Ukraine to catastrophe and setting the stage for a much bigger war.

Disinformation - Atlantic Council

Narrating the war: Analyzing Russia’s narratives for its invasion of Ukraine

Table of contents

Selling the war

Russia’s relationship with Ukraine

Details

Analysis

Details

Analysis

Details

Analysis

Russia’s global standing

Details

Analysis

Details

Analysis

Details

Analysis

Conclusion

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